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CHRISTIANITY    AND    LABOUR 


CHRISTIANITY    AND 
LABOUR 


BY   THE    REV. 

WILLIAM   MUIR,   M.A.,  B.D.,  B.L. 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  CALL  OF  THE  NEW  ERA,"  ETC. 


HODDER  AND  STOUGHTON 
LONDON   MCMX 


TO  THE  CONGREGATIONS  AT  MUTHILL ;  ST.  ENOCH'S, 
GLASGOW  ;  BLuAIRGOWBIE  ;  ROTHESAY  ;  AND  SOUTH 
BHAWLANDS,  GLASGOW  ;  WHO  HAVE  HONOURED  ME 
BY  MAKING  ME  THEIR  MINISTER,  AND  HAVE 
TAUGHT    ME    MORE    THAN    I    HAVE    TAUGHT     THEM 


PREFACE 

THE  entire  social  and  economic  situation  which 
is  summed  up,  sometimes  so  lightly,  as  the 
labour  problem  is  so  difficult  and  critical,  that  it 
is  the  duty  of  every  Christian  patriot  to  do  what 
he  can  to  discover  and  apply  the  right  solution. 
It  has  been  said  that  to  ask  a  question  aright  is 
half  the  answer,  and  to  understand  this  problem 
aright  would  be  far  more  than  half  the  solution. 
The  attempts  which  have  been  made  to  solve  it 
have,  however,  only  too  seldom  been  preceded 
as  they  should  have  been  by  earnest  endeavour  to 
find  out  exactly  what  it  is.  Even  where  there 
have  been  sympathy  and  freedom  from  prejudice 
there  has  frequently  been  essential  ignorance. 

The  labour  problem  lies  at  the  very  heart  of  the 
still  wider  problem  of  Collectivism  or  Socialism, 
which  has  grown  to  such  dimensions  in  recent 
years ;  and  believing,  as  I  do,  that  it  is  not  only 
more  complicated  than  ever,  but  that  it  has  in  it 
all  the  elements  of  revolution  and  even  of  disaster, 
unless  Christ  is  made  our  guide,  I  venture  to  make 
my  contribution  to  its  solution ;  not  as  a  partisan 
or  an  expert,  but  as  a  peacemaker  and  a  Christian 
student  of  history.  No  loyal  Christian  can  doubt 
that  Christ  can  solve  what  is  otherwise  insoluble, 
and  yet  the  danger  is  far  from  imaginary,  that 
unless  His  people  are  quick  to  discover  His  will 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

and  do  it,  some  solution  must,  ere  long,  be 
attempted  under  an  alien  lord,  even  in  this 
Christian  land. 

More  than  many  ministers  of  religion,  I  have 
been  in  close  contact  with  vital  and  important 
aspects  of  this  labour  problem  all  my  days.  My 
father  was  a  Trade  Unionist,  and  as  Chairman 
of  the  Executive  of  his  Union  carried  through 
what  was  a  successful  strike  as  strikes  go.  It 
was  my  fortune,  too,  before  going  to  college,  to 
work  for  several  years  in  a  weaving  factory, 
where  I  was  brought  face  to  face  with  the 
problem,  especially  as  it  affects  women  and  girls. 
As  a  student  in  the  University  of  Glasgow  circum- 
stances led  me,  later  on,  to  attend  Professor 
Edward  Caird's  Political  Economy  Class,  and  it 
was  no  dry-as-dust  system  which  he  propounded, 
nor  was  his  science  dismal.  Since  then,  as  a 
minister,  I  have  had  very  varied  opportunities  for 
studying  the  problem  at  first  hand  and  in  its 
most  concrete  forms. 

My  first  charge  was  in  a  village  where  the 
relations  between  the  great  majority  of  the 
people  and  the  one  landlord,  whose  tenants  or 
workmen  most  of  them  were,  were  almost  feudal. 
If,  however,  it  was  in  some  respects  a  despotism, 
it  was  benevolent  on  the  whole,  and  everybody 
was  comfortably  clad  and  had  enough  to  eat. 

My  next  charge  was  in  a  city  among  skilled 
artisans  who  were  well  off  so  long  as  trade  on 
the  Clyde  was  good,  and  they  were  young  and 
strong  enough  to  play  their  part.  I  found  them 
more  deeply  interested  in  social  subjects  than  in 
theology  ;  but  while  not  a  few  of  them  had  drifted 
out  of  the  Church  or  had  never  been  in  it,  there 


PREFACE  ix 

was  no  doctrinaire  antagonism  to  speak  of.  Even 
Mr.  Blatchford  was  not  antagonistic  then.*  The 
Socialist  propaganda  was  still  very  much  in  the 
air,  and  the  men  I  met  never  seemed  to  regard 
me  as  an  ally  of  the  capitalists.  One  thing  which 
I  learned  from  them  has  remained  with  me,  that 
the  older  workmen,  with  their  greater  responsi- 
bilities, keenly  resented  the  part  often  played 
in  their  trade  disputes  by  those  who  were  young 
and  irresponsible,  and  who  thought  it  plucky  to 
be  always  on  the  warpath. 

After  that,  I  was  minister  in  a  country  town 
where  I  came  into  contact,  not  only  with  mill- 
workers  and  farm-servants,  but  with  thousands 
of  the  flotsam  and  jetsam  of  our  civilisation  who 
came  annually  for  the  fruit  harvest.  Many  of 
them  were  either  unfit  or  unwilling  to  do  regular 
work ;  and  they  represented  one  of  the  saddest 
of  all  the  classes  in  our  complex  social  organism, 
if  they  can  be  said  to  be  in  the  organism  at  all. 
Since  then  I  have  been  in  a  popular  watering  place, 
where  there  used  to  be  boat-building  and  cotton 
mills,  but  which  now  depends  on  tourists  and 
summer  visitors  ;  now  I  am  back  in  the  city  again. 

I  do  not  mention  these  things  by  way  of  claim- 
ing expert  knowledge  of  the  labour  problem  in 
all  its  bearings,  but  rather  as  an  excuse  for 
venturing  to  deal  with  a  theme  so  beset  with 
difficulties.      It    sometimes    happens    that    those 

*  Cf.  his  tribute  to  Christianity,  as  quoted  in  the  Methodist 
Times,  February  15,  1906 :  "Almost  every  noble  action  and 
sweet  personality  of  these  centuries  has  come  of  it.  A  very 
great  deal  of  our  progress  has  come  of  it.  All  the  mercy 
and  patience  we  have  in  the  present,  and  all  the  hope  we 
have  in  the  future,  have  come  of  it." 


X  PREFACE 

who  belong  to  the  labouring  classes  deprive 
investigators,  who  never  had  their  opportunities 
for  getting  knowledge  at  first  hand,  of  the  help  they 
might  easily  render  them.  That  so  many  forget 
the  hole  in  the  rock  from  which  they  were  digged 
is  only  one  of  the  many  proofs  of  the  desolating 
ravages  of  the  caste  spirit  even  in  the  Church  of 
Jesus  Christ,  who  was  a  working  man.  Nowhere 
do  academic  doctrines  require  the  corrective  of 
actual  acquaintance  with  the  flesh  -  and  -  blood 
conditions  of  the  situation  more  than  in  con- 
nection with  labour. 

No  inquirers  into  the  life  of  the  labourer,  no 
matter  how  sympathetic  and  well-informed  they 
may  be,  can  ever  know  what  it  is  as  those  can 
who  have  actually  lived  it.  Unless  they  are  to 
the  manner  born  they  are  almost  certain  to  lack 
the  true  sense  of  proportion,  or  to  fail  in  their 
perspective.  Yet  in  all  my  experience  of  Church 
historians  or  Church  courts  I  have  hardly  ever 
met  any  one,  either  cleric  or  lay,  who  wrote  or 
spoke  as  having  been  a  labourer  himself.  In  all 
the  ages  it  has  been  the  unique  glory  of  the 
Church  that  the  highest  places  were  within  reach 
of  the  working  man's  son  if  he  had  the  Divine 
right  to  rule. 

But  those  who  have  thus  risen  to  place  and 
power  have  often  forgotten  their  brethren  whom 
they  left  behind  in  the  prison-house.  They  have 
even  talked  of  never  having  been  so  happy  as 
when  they  were  there  themselves,  although  they 
seldom  proposed  to  go  back  again.  One  result 
of  this  has  been  that  ignorance  often  prevails 
where  knowledge  is  the  fii'st  requisite,  and  that  the 
most  ridiculous   statements  are  freely  made  and 


PREFACE  xi 

accepted  as  true.  Another  result,  which  is  per- 
haps more  grievous  still,  is  that  those  who  need 
counsel  and  guidance  are  often  hopelessly 
alienated.  They  find  those  who  should  have  been 
their  spokesmen  and  interpreters  either  silent 
altogether  or  more  capitalist  than  the  capitalists. 
What  is  needed  everywhere  is  that  the  whole 
truth  should  be  sympathetically  known. 

Not  long  ago  a  warm-hearted,  open-handed 
minister,  with  a  deservedly  great  reputation  as 
a  worker  among  the  poor,  laid  it  down  as  an 
axiom  that  no  working  man's  family  can  live 
decently  on  less  than  two  pounds  a  week.  With 
all  my  heart  do  I  wish  that  every  family  in  the 
land  had  that,  and  more.  They  could  easily  spend 
it  to  their  moral  and  physical  advantage.  But  to 
say  that  no  family  can  live  decently  on  less  than 
two  pounds  a  week  is  to  bring  a  kind  of  railing 
accusation  against  a  multitude  of  homes  where 
lives  not  only  decent,  but  comely  and  gracious, 
are  being  lived  on  far  less  than  that  sum. 

I  have  known  such  a  home  where  a  true 
Christian  life  gathered  round  an  income  which 
was  seldom  more  than  one  pound  a  week.  That 
meant,  of  course,  that  there  was  self-surrender 
as  well  as  both  gifts  and  graces,  which  cannot 
always  be  counted  on  and  can  never  be  demanded ; 
but  the  thing  which  it  is  said  cannot  be  done  was 
done,  and  done  well.  There  was  no  waste  and 
there  was  no  drinking.  But  neither  was  there 
anything  sordid  or  mean.  There  never  was  a 
time  when  there  was  no  money  in  the  bank,  or 
when  any  member  of  the  household  was  kept 
back  from  church  for  want  of  clothes. 

Important    and     altogether    necessary    as    the 


xii  PREFACE 

income  is,  it  is  only  one  element  after  all.  The 
ethical  aspects  of  the  labour  problem  are  even 
more  important  than  the  economic. 

At  the  other  extreme  of  ill-informed  statement 
on  this  subject  are  the  anecdotes  about  self-made 
men  which  are  sometimes  retailed  at  Merchant 
Company  banquets  and  General  Assembly  con- 
ferences, sometimes  by  the  self-made  men  them- 
selves. They  tell  of  what  was  achieved  in  the 
good  old  times  on  seven  or  ten  shillings  a  week. 
Usually,  however,  their  tales  are  not  received  as 
genuine  records,  especially  when  they  are  told  by 
way  of  criticising  those  who  refuse  to  be  content 
with  a  mere  pittance  as  their  share  of  the  joint 
profits  of  labour  and  capital. 

Whatever  may  have  been  possible  fifty  years 
ago,  it  is  not  possible  now  to  bring  up  a  family 
on  ten  or  twelve  shillings  a  week ;  and  if  ever  it 
was  possible  it  was  done  at  a  great  cost.  The 
entire  conception  of  life  and  the  whole  mode  of 
living  have  so  changed,  and  changed  for  the 
better,  since  then  that  what  might  have  been 
done  long  ago  without  injury  to  self-respect  or 
hurt  to  the  moral  self,  could  only  be  done  now 
in  squalor  and  degradation — at  any  rate,  in  a 
town,  and  in  all  this  discussion  it  is  an  important 
factor  that  we  are  now  so  largely  a  nation  of 
dwellers  in  towns.  However  wise  or  good  they 
may  be,  lessons  on  thrift  cannot  but  be  ineffective 
so  long  as  they  are  given  to  mill-girls  by  those 
who  spend  as  much  on  holidays  as  their  hearers 
earn ;  or  to  working  men  by  those  who  spend  as 
much  on  golf  as  their  hearers  have  for  all  the 
necessaries  of  life. 

Yet    another    example    of     the    influence     of 


PREFACE  xiii 

ignorance  and  ex  parte  statement  is  the  indig- 
nation which  so  often  gathers  round  what  is 
stigmatised  as  the  sin  of  cheapness.  A  maximum 
of  eloquence  has  been  expended  on  this  theme 
with  a  minimum  of  warrant.  The  woes  of  the 
poor  sempstress  or  machinist  have  been  ascribed 
to  greedy  bargain-hunters,  when  the  real  cause  of 
the  evils,  only  too  real  and  too  deplorable,  is 
usually  to  be  sought  for  elsewhere. 

The  truly  disastrous  and  fatal  competition  is 
not  that  of  the  manufacturers  or  retailers  seek- 
ing customers,  but  that  of  the  crowds  of 
unorganised  women-workers  who  are  ready  to 
take  work  at  any  price.  A  competent  authority 
has  shown  in  connection  with  an  article  of 
feminine  attire,  for  the  finishing  of  which  the 
starvation  wage  of  half  a  crown  per  dozen  was 
paid,  that  even  if  half  a  crown  each  had  been  paid 
there  would  have  been  a  splendid  profit  for  every- 
body concerned.  The  retailers  have  often  their 
best  profits  on  the  cheapest  goods.  Long  ago  it 
was  shown,  before  Lord  Dunraven's  Commission 
on  Sweating,  that  a  dog-chain  which  was  retailed 
for  fifteen-pence  cost  twopence  for  material  and 
three-farthings  for  labour.  The  sin  here  could 
not  be  justly  described  as  that  of  cheapness,  at 
any  rate.* 

*  The  Trade  Boards  Act,  which  came  into  operation  at 
the  beginning  of  1910,  and  which  introduced  a  new  and 
important  principle  into  British  legislation,  is  full  of  pro- 
mise that  some  of  the  worst  evils  of  sweating  will  be 
successfully  dealt  with  at  last.  Within  three  months  of  its 
advent  it  has  achieved  a  conspicuous  success  at  Cradley 
Heath,  so  long  notorious  for  the  miserable  wages,  in- 
humanly long  horn's,  and  other  degrading  conditions  of  its 


XIV  PREFACE 

But  this  sort  of  inaccurate  criticism  reaches  its 
climax  and  becomes  most  offensive  when  it  is 
roundly  asserted  that  no  labourer  can  live  a 
moral  life  in  a  two-roomed  house.  I  am  no 
advocate  of  small  houses,  and  would  rejoice  in 
a  minimum  of  four  apartments.  Only  those  can 
appreciate  the  advantages  of  having  plenty  of 
room  who  have  known  what  over-crowding  really 
means.  Not  a  few  might  save  on  doctor's  bills 
what  would  enable  them  to  pay  for  a  bigger  house. 

But  those  who  discuss  this  aspect  of  a  delicate 
theme  should  do  so  with  some  knowledge  of  the 
facts.  Every  case  must  be  taken  on  its  merits. 
A  young  couple  may  be  very  happy  and  very 
comfortable  for  a  while  in  a  house  of  two  apart- 
ments, and  many  an  aged  couple  are  very  happy 
and  comfortable  in  such  a  home.  Such  reflec- 
tions as  this  on  some  of  the  purest  homes  in 
the  land,  like  kindred  reflections  on  the  morality 
of  mill-girls  and  others  similarly  situated,  ought 
never  to  be  made  without  adequate  acquaintance 
with  the  facts,  and  such  an  acquaintance  would 
usually  prevent  them  being  made  at  all. 

These  may  be  extreme  instances  of  ill-informed 
statements,  but  they  are  true  instances  and  nowise 
isolated,  and  the  fact  remains  that  nothing  but 
harm  can  result  from  the  incursions  of  the 
ignorant,  no  matter  how  much  sympathy  there 
may  be.  There  was  once  an  arbiter  who  said 
that  the  case  he  had  in  hand  had  been  very 
simple  until  he   heard  the   other  side.     Yet    an 

women-workers.  The  wages  of  the  chainmakers  there  have 
been  almost  doubled  by  the  operation  of  the  Act,  and  where 
the  women  have  hitherto  been  working  for  5s.  or  6s.  a  week, 
the  minimum  for  full  time  is  now  to  be  lis.  3d. 


PREFACE  XV 

arbiter  must  hear  both  sides,  no  matter  how 
disconcerting  the  fuller  knowledge  may  prove ; 
and  even  the  time-honoured  cry  about  the  good 
old  times  must  be  subjected  to  a  vigorous  criticism 
and  only  accepted  with  many  a  reservation. 

That  is  true  even  of  the  much-belauded  fifteenth 
century,  that  halcyon  era  of  rude  abundance,  the 
golden  age  of  the  labourer  in  Britain,  when  there 
were  no  unemployed,  and  when  there  were  neither 
paupers  nor  millionaires.  The  true  golden  age  is 
happily  still  to  come.  Our  best  is  yet  to  be. 
These  olden  times,  with  all  their  merits,  were 
often  very  hard  and  very  bad.  The  impression, 
for  example,  which  is  left  on  mind  and  heart 
after  reading  such  a  study  as  that  of  Mr.  Gray 
Graham,  on  "Social  Life  in  Scotland  in  the 
Eighteenth  Century,"  is  that  the  great  mass  of 
the  honest,  hard-working  Scottish  people  in  that 
era  were  ground  down  by  the  grimmest  poverty. 
The  only  qualification  which  need  be  made  is  that 
poverty  does  not  seem  to  have  degraded  the  poor 
then  as  it  does  now,  at  least  in  the  towns. 

But  it  would  be  as  short-sighted  as  it  would  be 
churlish  to  deny  that  both  relatively  and  abso- 
lutely things  have  greatly  improved  since  the 
days  when  the  grandfather  of  David  Livingstone 
could  earn  only  threepence  a  day,  and  was  sent 
to  gaol  for  writing  a  petition  on  behalf  of  a  poor 
old  woman,  representing  that  she  could  not  live 
on  her  parish  allowance  of  sixpence  a  month ;  or 
when,  not  a  century  ago,  thousands  of  children  in 
English  mills  and  mines  were  wakened  by  the 
lash,  and  were  kept  awake  by  it  from  early 
mom  till  late  at  night."* 

*  See  Gibbin's  "English  Social  Reformers,"  pp.  112-123. 


xvi  PREFACE 

The  best  reason  we  have  for  expecting  progress 
in  the  future  is  that  there  has  been  so  much  pro- 
gress in  the  past.  It  is  only  out  of  movements 
which  are  permeated  with  hope  that  good  can 
come.  Low-browed,  sullen  despair  has  always 
been  barren.  Fruitful  revolutions  have  always 
come  when  things  had  begun  to  mend,  and  not 
when  they  were  at  their  worst. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

PREFACE      .  .      • vii 

Extreme    Difficulty    and    Ubgency     of     Social     and 

Economic  Situation      .....  vii 

Labour    Problem    at    Heart    op    Wider    Problem    of 

Collectivism  or  Socialism  .  .  .  .vii 

Author's  Apologia.    His   First-hand  Knowledge  op  the 

Problem  .......        viii 

Those  with  such  Experiences  too  often  Silent  about 

Them  .  .  .  .  .  .      x 

Many  Erroneous  Conceptions  due  to  such  Silence         .     xi 

"No  Working  Man's  Family  can  live  on  Less  than 
£2  A  Week  "     .  .  .  .  .  .     xi 

"Families    which    were    reared    on    78.    or  10s.   a 
Week"         ......  xii 

"The  Cry  about  the  Sin  Cheapness"  .  .  xiii 

"  A    Moral     Life     Impossible    in    a    Two-roomed 
HouBB "......         xiv 

The  Inroads  of  Ignorance  and  the  Need  fob  Intimate 

Knowledge        ......         xiv 

The  Undoubted  Progress  which  has  been  made  .    xv 

Fruitful  Revolutions  come  when  Things  have  begun 

TO  MEND     .  .  .  .  .  .  .       xvi 

Christianity  and  Labour.  1  *  xvll 


xviii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 

PAGE 

^HE  PEOBLEM 1 

Bkginnings  of  Laboub  Pboblem  in  attempts  to  evade 
Primal  Cuese    ......  2 

Slavery  :  Degradation  of  Women  :  Embittered   Social 
Relationships         .  .  .  .  .  .      2 

Labour  Problem  bound  up  with  Problem  of  Moral  Evil      2 
All  the  Social  Problems  bound  up  with  Each  Other      4 
Failing    the    Christian    Solution    of    Problem    Some 
Other  will  bb  attempted      ....  6 

Weaknesses  and  Defects  of  Conventional  Christianity  .      5 
Yet  Christianity  alone  can  solve  the  Problem        .  6 

New   Complications  :    Those    no    longer    Young  :    The 
Unemployed  .  .  .  .  .  .10 

Christianity  alone  can  deal  with  the  Causes  .  14 

It    must    be    taken    very    much    as    we    find    it    in 
Christianity  of  the  Churches    .  .  .  .15 

We  must  look  to  the  Main  Stream  and  not  to  Eddies 
FOR  THE  Truth  .....  19 

Older     Laissbz    Fairs     Doctrines     hopelessly     dis- 
credited      .  .  ,  .  .  .  .21 

Old  Party  Cries  no  longer  availing    ...  24 

Some   Christians    hold   Pagan    Conception    of   Labour 
AND  THE  State         .  .  .  .  .  .26 

Labour  now  organised  as  never  before  .  .  28 

Shaftesbury's    Experience    with    Bishops    and    Free- 
thinkers      .  .  .  .  .  .  .31 

Estrangement  now   becoming  Theoretical  as  well  as 
Practical  .;....  33 

Ohristianity  alone  can    reconcile    Individualism  and 
Collectivism  .  ,  .  .  .  .33 

Manifest     Need     for    Christian    Motive    Power    and 
Illumination     ....  .  .  36 


CONTENTS  xixL 

The  Peoblem  (continued).  PAasr. 

Capital  and  Labour  both  coming  Lamentably  Shobt  op 
THE  Ideal    .  .  .  .  .  .  .37 

Lines  op  Present  Discussion       ....  40- 

Labouree  (1)  AS  Slave  ;  (2)  as  Seep  ;   (3)  as  Servant  ;  (4) 

AS  Employee  and  Citizen  .  .  .  .40^ 

Corresponding  Stages  in  Church  History  and  Christian 

Revelation        .....  .42. 

Progress  by  Antagonism  :  prom  Collectivism  to  Indi- 
vidualism :  PROM  Anonymity  to  Anonymity  :  not 
Vicious  Circles  but  Circles  op  Grace  .  .    43- 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE       ....  47 

Wherever  the   Gospel  went  it   pound  the  Labourer 

A  Slave        .  .  .  .  .  .  .47' 

Slavery  absolutely  condemned  prom  Economic  Stand- 
point      .  ....  .  .  48 

Comte's  View  that  it  was   Beneficent  pboh  Military 

Viewpoint    .  .  .  .  .  .  .60' 

Epfects  op  Slavery  on  Free  Labour    ...  5ft 

Slavery    Essential   to   Paganism.    Teaching   op  Plato 

AND  Aristotle         .  .  .  .  .  .52 

The  Gospel  Conception  op  Labour        .  .  .54 

Hebrews    alone    among    Ancient    Peoples    had    True 

Conception  op  Liberty     .  .  .  .  .    55> 

New  Testament  spiritualised  and  univerbalised  their 

Nobler  Conceptions    .....  61 

Apparent  Silence  op  New  Testament  about  the  Great 

Open  Sobe  .  .  .  .  .  .  .64 


XX  CONTENTS 

The  Laboubee  as  a  Slave  (continued).  page 

Christ     not     beought    into    Pebsonal    Contact     with 

Slavbby  .......  65 

The  Epistle  to  Philemon.    Chbistianity  Revolutionaby 

AS  Nothing  Else  has  been  .  .  .  .66 

All   the    Old    Disabilities   cancelled.      Emancipation 

went  steadily  on         .  .  .  .  .70 

Influence  op  Loed's  Suppee  in  desteoying  Slaveby  .  72 
Not  suepbising  that  the  Movement  was  Slow.    Geoege 

Whitefield  and  Slaveey       ....  76 

Othee    Ameliobative    Foeces    also    at    Wobk.      Stoic 

Attitude  and  Chbistian    .  .  .  .  .79 

St.  Theodoeb  of  Studium.     "Foe  Man  is  made  in  the 

Image  of  God"  .....  84 

Pope  Clement  IV.    "In  His  Eyes  thebe  abe  neitheb 

Nobles  nob  Villeins"      .  .  .  .  .86 

Social  Rbfoem  at  its  Vastest  only  a  By-pboduct      .  86 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF  .  ...    93 

Point  of  Tbansition  nowhebe  veby  Definite.    Fboissaet's 

Testimony          ......  93 

Slave  and  Seef  sometimes  almost  Synonymous  Teems     .  94 

Seep  bound  to  Soil  eathee  than  to  Ownee  of  Soil       .  95 

No  Foemal  Emancipation  needed  to  set  Sebf  pbee        .  95 
English    Seefdom   Relative    and  necessaeily   a    Tban- 

8ITI0NAL  Stage  ......  96 

Long   Peace    in    Empibe    dbied    up   Chief   Souecbs   op 

Supply  of  Slaves  ......  100 


CONTENTS  xxi 

The  Labouheb  as  a  Serf  (continued).  paob 

The  Effect  of  Hebeditaby  Fixing  of  Tbades.    Coloni  : 

quasi-coloni      ......         101 

Saxon   England  :   Slaves   and   Ceobls.    Ceobls  become 

NoEMAN  Villeins    ......  105 

Petition  in  Time  op  Richabd  II.  Wolsey's  Cabeeb  .  107 
Influence    op  Cbusades  and    Black   Death.    Peasants' 

Wabs.  Statute  op  Laboubebs  ....  113 
John  Wiclip  and  the  Laboub  Movement  .  .        119 

Lutheb's  Failube   to   eespond  to    the   Needs  op   the 

Peasants       .......  127 

The  GtooD  Woek  done  in  MEDiaiiVAr,  Ohuech  .  .        130 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT       .  .  .  .137 

Change  at  Fibst  mainly  consisted  op  Possibilities  .  137 
Vast  Economic  Dippebence  between  Sebp  and  Sebvant.  138 
English  Laws  against  "Alliances  and  Congbegations 

among  Laboubebs  "      .  .  .  .  .        144: 

Befobmation  made  Men  Fbbe  and  Responsible  after  a 

New  Sobt     .......  146 

The  Chubch  leavening  the  Lump  op  Humanity  .  148 
Evils     which    chabactebised    Laboubeb's    Lot    as    a 

Servant       .......  151 

Bias     against     Wobkee     both     in     Legislation     and 

Administeation  ......         157 

The  Revolutionaby  Eba  in  France  and  Bbitain  .  .  159 

Right  op  Combination.    Women   and  Child  Labourers. 

Apprentice  System  .....  162 
Factoby  Acts.    Shaptesbuby.    Mbs.  Bbowning      .  .  168 

Chubch  training  and  insfibing  Labour  Leadebs        .        173 


xxii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   V 

PAQK 

THE  LABOURER  AS  AN    EMPLOYEE  .  .  .183 

New  Woed  natcbalised  to  describe  New  Relation  .  184 
The  Effect  op  lowering  op  the  Franchise  .  .  187 

Laws  dealing  with  Emplotebs'  Liabilitt  for  Injuries 

TO  Workmen      ......         191 

Limits  op  State  Interference  with  Labour.    Applied 

Christianity  only  Guide  .....  196 
Influence  op  Evangelical  Revival       .  .  .         213 

Recognition    op    New    Rights    gives    birth    to    New 

Conceptions  op  Duty  .....  213 
Loss  as  well  as  Gain  in  New  Position  op  Labourer  .  215 
The  Era  op  Machinery  and  Capitalist  Combination  .  218 
Inroads  on  the  Labourer's  Personality.     Christ  alone 

has  the  Corrective     .....        225 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 229 

Labourer  as  much  in  the  Rear  relatively  as  Ever  229 
Growing  Determination  that   Some   Solution  must  be 

found      .....  .  .         235 

The    Social    Millennium    will    not   come    by   Act    op 

Parliament  ......  239 

The  Christian  Ideal  as  Spiritual  eludes  Analysis  .  241 
The   Work  op  the   Labourer  must   be   recognised   as 

HIS  Divine  Vocation  .....  242 
The  Dignity  op  Idleness.  "Ca-canny"  Policy  .  242 
The  Labourer's  Place  in  the  Social  Organism  must  be 

fully  recognised  .....  251 


CONTENTS  xxiii 

Thb  Chbistian  Ideal  (continued).  page 

Many     Pbejudices     and     Antipathies.      Snobbery     in 

Chubch.    Reverence  fob  Money      .  .  .        254 

The  Laboueeb  must  get  a  Living  Wage  as  the  Fbuit 

OF  HIS  Labour         ......  260 

A    Christian   Conception   already   Operative    to    Some 

Extent    ...  ....         261 

Very   Many  do   not   get    a   Living   Wage.     The    Evil 

Effects  op  this      ......  265 

There  ought  to  be   Some  Provision  for  Labourers  no 

longer  fit  for  work  .....  270 
Old  Age  Pensions  begin  a  New  Era.    The  Chubch  and 

HER  Veterans  ......  271 

Contributory  Schemes  pail  where  most  required  .  273 
The    Uncertainty     which    envelopes    the     Employee. 

Those  no  longer  Young  .....  277 
Some     Provision     should    be    made    for    Compulsory 

Arbitration  in  Trade  Disputes        .  .  .        283 

The    Colonies    show    the    way.      *'  Blessed    are    the 

Peacemakers"         ......  287 

The  Limitations  op  Trade  Unionism      .  .  .        291 

Christians    must    Christianise    the    Atmosphere,     and 

touch  Every  Part  of  Life  ....  295 

Only    under     Christ's    Leadership    can     the     coming 

Revolution  be  Peaceful  ....  302 
With  Loyalty  to  Him  all  will  yet  be  wbll        .  .  308 

INDEX      ........        809 


THE   PROBLEM 


CHAPTER    I 

THE    PROBLEM 

IT  has  been  said  that  the  labour  problem  began 
with  the  primal  curse,  "  In  the  sweat  of  thy 
face  shalt  thou  eat  bread."  In  reality  it  began 
with  the  determination  of  those  on  whom  the 
curse  fell  to  evade  it  if  they  could  by  making 
others  work  for  them ;  a  determination  soon 
arrived  at  and  long  persisted  in.  In  the  good 
providence  of  God  the  curse  itself  might  have 
become  a  blessing,  but  as  the  blight  has  worked 
out  it  has  been  a  curse  indeed  for  the  great  mass 
of  men.  It  has  brought  such  gigantic  evils  in  its 
train  as  the  degradation  of  woman  to  be  a  drudge, 
and  the  corroding  system  of  slavery,  that  nemesis 
of  the  nations.  In  every  generation  it  has 
embittered  the  social  relationships  and  put 
enormous  barriers  in  the  pathway  of  human  pro- 
gress. Fortunately,  however,  we  do  not  require 
meanwhile  to  go  so  far  back  as  the  Fall  except  in 
so  far  as  that  is  necessary  to  remind  us  that  the 
labour  problem  is  intimately  bound  up  with  the 
still  sadder  and  more  perplexing  problem  of  moral 
evil.  To  see  this  aright  is  to  understand  why  it  is 
that  the  wisdom  and  grace  of  Christ  are  alone 
sufficient  for  the  needs  and  yearnings  of  our  age  ; 
and  our  purpose  now  is  to  set  forth  what  Chris- 

Christianity  and  Labour.  3 


4  THE  PROBLEM 

tianity  has  already  accomplished  in  the  hope  that 
the  record  will  not  only  warrant  us  in  claiming 
that  the  gospel  rightly  understood  and  applied  is 
able  to  solve  our  labour  problem,  but  that  it  will 
also  show  us  how  the  solution  must  come.  All  the 
social  problems  are,  of  course,  bound  up  with  each 
other,  and  in  part  the  solution  of  the  labour 
problem  may  be  looked  for  through  the  solution 
of  other  related  problems  such  as  intemperance, 
physical  deterioration,  and  overcrowding  into 
large  centres  of  population.  On  the  other  hand, 
some  of  these  related  problems  would  probably 
disappear  if  the  central  problem  of  labour  were 
rightly  solved,  and  it  is  certain  that  this  can  never 
be  done  until  it  is  realised  that  it  is  not  an 
economic  question  merely  but  moral  and  spiritual. 
All  good  patriots  and  Christians  are  agreed  that 
some  solution  of  the  labour  problem  and  the  other 
social  problems  which  cluster  round  it  must  be 
found,  and  that  the  King's  business  requires  haste. 
Indeed,  the  urgency  of  the  situation  is  such  that 
some  solution  of  it  will  ere  long  be  found — if  not 
the  Christian  solution,  then  some  other ;  and  found 
by  force,  if  not  in  wiser  ways — if  not  by  evolu- 
tion, then  by  revolution.  The  conviction  of  every 
loyal  believer  must  be  that  a  worthy  and  enduring 
solution  can  only  be  looked  for  through  the  honest 
application  of  the  teaching  of  Christ,  in  the  spirit 
of  Christ.  Even  the  possibility  of  a  solution  being 
attempted  in  a  Christian  land,  under  the  auspices 
of  those  who  teach  that  the  first  thing  is  to  get 
rid  of  Christianity,  and  that  "  one  of  the  great 
social  needs  of  our  time  is  to  sweep  away  the 
whole  tottering  structure  of  conventional  religion 
and  worship,"   should  fill   every   Christian    heart 


THE  PROBLEM  5 

with  shame.*  Yet  unless  the  Christian  solution 
is  found,  and  that  quickly,  it  seems  inevitable 
that  some  other  will  be  tried ;  and  it  is  for  those 
who  believe  that  it  would  be  a  dire  calamity,  as 
well  as  an  everlasting  disgrace,  for  our  nation  to 
go  forward  under  any  other  banner  but  Christ's, 
to  let  His  message  be  known  in  all  its  fulness 
everywhere,  and  to  see  that  His  spirit  is  loyally 
manifested  in  all  the  relationships  of  life. 

It  is  true  that  this  must  be  done  with  much 
humility  and  with  a  profound  sense  of  the  sor- 
rowful fact  that  the  weaknesses  and  defects  of 
conventional  Christianity  are  very  manifold.  A 
recent  writer  f  of  wide  experience  as  minister, 
author,  and  evangelist,  goes  so  far  as  to  maintain 
that  as  things  are  Christ's  work  cannot  be  done  in 
and  through  the  Church  which  bears  His  name  ; 
and  if  that  be  so  the  sooner  the  Church  is  cleansed 
and  reformed  the  better.  Yet  the  work  must  also 
be  done  hopefully  and  strenuously  and  in  no  half- 

*  For  examples  of  the  materialistic  attitude  of  some  social 
reformers  to  Christianity,  reference  may  be  made  to  footnote 
on  page  13  of  Peabody's  "Jesus  Christ  and  the  Social  Ques- 
tion," 1907  edition  :  "A  collection  of  such  coarser  utterances 
may  be  found  in  Kaufmann,  'Christian  Socialism,'  1888, 
chap.  ix.  ;  and  in  profusion  in  Kohler,  '  Sozialistische 
Irrlehren  von  der  Entstehung  des  Christen  turns, '  1899, 
s.  21ff.  *  To  suppress  religion  which  provides  an  illusory 
happiness  is  to  establish  the  claims  of  real  happiness ' 
(' Nouveau  Parti,'  1884;  Kaufmann,  p.  195).  'The  cross, 
once  a  symbol  of  suffering,  is  now  a  symbol  of  slavery ' 
{To-day,  January,  1894;  Kaufmann,  p.  3).  'We  are  all, 
I  take  it,  disciples  of  the  materialist  philosophy  of  history 
derived  from  Marx'  (Remarks  at  Stuttgart  Congress;  Kohler, 
8.  7)." 

f  Rev.  Dr.  W.  J.  Dawson. 


6  THE  PROBLEM 

hearted  or  apologetic  spirit.  Many  who  ought  to 
know  better  speak  as  if  the  Gospel  of  God's  grace 
were  a  spent  force,  and  only  too  many  Christians 
are  so  sicklied  o'er  with  care  and  responsibility 
that  they  have  no  heart  to  repudiate  the  baseless 
and  shameful  insinuation.  It  has  been  through  His 
Church,  in  the  right  sense  of  that  term,  that  Christ 
has  worked  hitherto,  and  with  all  its  perversions 
and  defects  there  is  much  in  the  history  of  the 
Church  to  support  the  claim  that  if  Christianity 
were  only  allowed  to  do  its  work  in  its  own  way 
it  would  solve  the  labour  problem  of  our  time  as  it 
has  solved  many  another  labour  problem  in  the 
years  which  are  gone.*  Even  yet  the  estrange- 
ment between  the  Church  and  large  sections  of  the 
community  would  disappear  before  the  sunshine 
of  brotherly  kindness  and  Christian  sympathy ; 
before  the  love  of  justice  and  fair-play ;  and  no 
believer  should  ever  for  one  moment  abandon  the 
claim  that  Christ  can  solve  every  problem  and 
right  every  wrong  through  the  gospel  of  His  grace 

*  "The  great  characteristic  of  Christianity,  and  the  proof 
of  its  divinity,  is  that  it  has  been  the  main  source  of  the 
moral  development  of  Europe  "  (Lecky). 

"In  all  the  greatest  forward  movements  of  humanity, 
religion  has  been  one  of  the  driving  forces  "  (Rauschenbusch, 
"  Christianity  and  the  Social  Crisis,"  p.  332). 

"The  Christian  Church  did  much  to  soften  and  then  to 
abolish  slavery  and  serfdom,  into  which  the  peoples,  defeated 
in  the  struggle  for  existence,  had  been  forced  "  (Kirkup,  "A 
History  of  Socialism,"  p.  268). 

' '  Dare  we,  if  we  had  the  infant  human  race  in  our  arms, 
dare  we  turn  ourselves  to  that  care-worn  personage,  our 
modern  civilisation  sitting  at  her  factory  gate,  and  say  to  her 
' Take  this  child  and  nurse  it  for  me '  ? "  "The  true  mother 
must  care  for  her  child  "  (I.  Taylor). 


THE  PROBLEM  7 

proclaimed  in  pure  and  generous  Christian  lives. 
It  has  been  the  mission  of  the  gospel  in  every  age 
to  set  those  free  who  all  their  lifetime  had  been 
subject  to  bondage  ;  and  in  so  far  as  the  labour 
problem  is  a  part  of  the  still  more  universal 
problem  of  sin,  its  solution  can  only  come  through 
Him  who  came  to  save  sinners  and  to  destroy  the 
works  of  the  devil.  Already  He  has  liberated  the 
slave,  and  made  the  serf  a  free  labourer  and  a 
ruHng  citizen ;  and  this  emancipation  which  has 
been  accomplished  through  His  spirit  is  but  the 
first-fruits  of  that  still  greater  emancipation  which 
is  yet  to  be  achieved  when  man  has  been  restored 
to  perfect  fellowship  with  God.  Much  as  has  been 
written  about  the  dignity  of  labour  and  the  horny 
hand  and  about  the  perennial  sacredness  of  faith- 
ful toil,  the  fact  remains  that  there  was  no  dignity 
of  labour  until  Christ  came  and  that  there  is  none 
yet  where  His  healing  touch  is  not  felt.  Where- 
ever  pagan  ideals  hold  sway,  either  within  the 
Church  or  without,  the  dignity  of  idleness  holds 
the  field.  Nor  can  there  be  any  Christian  solution 
of  the  problem  unless  there  is  honest  dealing  with 
the  facts  of  the  case.  Our  Lord  has  done  great 
things  for  the  toiler  already,  but  what  He  has 
done  is  only  an  earnest  of  what  He  and  He  alone 
will  yet  do  when  all  men  everywhere  give  heed  to 
His  teaching  and  do  His  will.  As  the  industrial 
conflict  thickens  and  becomes  international  in  the 
fullest  sense,  the  labour  problem  will  become  more 
complicated  as  well  as  more  accentuated  than  ever ; 
and  Christianity  alone  can  bind  the  nations  with 
other  ties  than  those  of  mutual  suspicion  and 
universal  greed.  Great  things  were  hoped  for 
from  the  spread  of  trade,  but  the  nations  are  now 


8  THE  PROBLEM 

ready  to  fight  for  new  markets  and  are  strangling 
themselves  with  armaments.  The  gospel  of  God's 
grace  alone  can  put  labour  in  its  rightful  place,  so 
that  a  man's  work  will  no  longer  be  merely  the 
means  whereby  he  earns  his  livelihood  or  tries 
to  do  so,  but  his  divine  vocation,  his  calling  in 
deed  and  in  truth,  the  means  by  which  he  has 
been  called  to  glorify  God  and  bless  his  fellow- 
men. 

The  labour  problem  is  always  with  us.  In  some 
respects  it  is  more  with  us  than  ever ;  and  while  it 
would  be  both  stupid  and  ungrateful  to  deny  that 
much  progress  has  been  made,  it  is  impossible  not 
to  see  how  much  more  remains  to  be  done.  As 
Ferdinand  Lasalle  put  it,  "  Man  has  been  released 
successively  from  a  state  of  legal  dependence  and 
from  one  of  intellectual  dependence  ;  he  must  now 
be  released  from  one  of  economic  dependence."  * 
It  is  not  even  certain  that  complete  deliverance 
will  come  along  the  lines  on  which  we  have 
hitherto  been  moving.  Salvation  will  probably 
not  come  by  way  of  Westminster ;  probably  not 
even  through  some  extension  or  combination  of 
Trade  Unions  new  and  old.  The  cry  of  the  needy 
and  wronged  has  now  become  articulate  after  a  new 
fashion  because  of  the  extension  of  the  franchise 
and  the  rise  of  the  Labour  Party,  as  well  as 
through  better  organisation  and  the  employ- 
ment of  the  Press.  Carlyle  held  that  the  woes 
suffered  by  the  aristocrats  during  the  French 
Revolution  were  as  nothing  compared  with  what 

*  "The  political  enfranchisement  of  the  masses  is  well- 
nigh  accomplished ;  the  process  which  will  occupy  the  next 
period  will  be  that  of  their  social  enfranchisement"  (B. 
Kidd). 


THE  PROBLEM  9 

the  common  people  had  suffered  during  long 
centuries  of  misery  and  misrule,  but  that  those 
who  were  wronged  in  the  Reign  of  Terror  could 
shriek  out  and  let  their  agonies  be  known.  So 
now  the  millions  who  have  perforce  been  silent  so 
long  are  able  to  speak  out.  In  these  days  of 
syndicates,  however,  the  Press  tends  to  be  at  the 
service  of  the  biggest  purse ;  the  classes  are  still 
mightier  than  the  masses  ;  and  labour  is  not  yet 
as  vocal  as  it  will  probably  be  soon.  Besides  all 
this  the  spread  of  a  higher  standard  of  comfort 
and  a  growing  appreciation  of  the  benefits  of 
holidays  and  recreation,  as  well  as  a  tenderer 
national  temper  and  conscience,  have  led  to  an 
ever-deepening  desire  on  the  part  of  the  majority 
to  give  heed  to  the  appeal  of  the  suffering  and 
wronged,  and  to  find  some  permanent  remedy  for 
our  social  ills.  The  great  political  parties  admit 
the  evils  and  only  differ  as  to  how  they  might  be 
removed. 

The  labour  problem  changes  its  form  somewhat 
with  the  fluctuations  of  trade,  but  while  it  becomes 
more  acute,  not  to  say  menacing,  when  trade  is 
bad  and  unemployment  is  widespread,  it  never 
wholly  disappears  even  when  there  should  be 
employment  for  all.  There  are  phases  of  it, 
indeed,  which  only  become  acute  when  trade  is 
good  and  in  times  of  comparative  prosperity. 
There  is  the  problem  of  the  employed  as  well  as 
of  those  who  are  out  of  work.  The  issue  is  vastly 
more  than  a  conflict  between  federated  Trade 
Unions  and  federated  employers.  Not  only  are 
there  many  workers  who  are  not  in  the  Unions, 
there  are  multitudes  of  unskilled  labourers  who 
are  always  on  the  verge  of  destitution  even  when 


10  THE  PROBLEM 

work  is  plentiful.  Everybody  knows  now  of  the 
thirteen  millions  of  our  population  who  are  always 
within  sight  of  starvation.  To  say  that  they  are 
thriftless  or  shiftless,  or  that  they  ought  to  have 
been  taught  trades  when  they  were  young,  only 
adds  to  the  complications  of  the  problem.  Many 
of  them  may  be  sinners  indeed,  but  they  are  not 
sinners  above  others,  and  they  have  been 
grievously  sinned  against.  No  amount  of  thrift 
would  enable  some  of  them  to  live  on  what  they 
can  earn,  to  say  nothing  of  laying  something  past ; 
and  in  any  case  whatever  Political  Economy  may 
do  and  perhaps  must  do,  Christianity  cannot 
abandon  them  as  thriftless,  or  leave  them 
out  of  account.  Whatever  an  agnostic  science 
may  do,  the  followers  of  Christ  can  never  adopt 
the  cry  of  those  who  denounce  the  mistaken 
kindness  which  spares  such  lives  as  those  of  the 
incurable  at  a  great  cost. 

Then,  further,  there  is  the  appalling  complication 
which  grows  out  of  the  fact  that  in  many  trades 
it  is  often  impossible  for  those  who  are  no  longer 
young  to  obtain  regular  employment.  An  ordinary 
workman  who  requires  to  use  spectacles  or  whose 
hair  is  growing  grey  soon  finds  himself  out  in  the 
cold.  He  may  not  actually  be  dismissed  on  that 
account,  but  if  once  he  is  out  of  work  he  will  not 
easily  obtain  regular  employment  again.  The 
blame  for  this  unhappy  state  of  affairs  is  put  by 
some  on  the  insistence  by  the  Trade  Unions  on  a 
standard  wage  and  on  the  operation  of  the  Work- 
men's Compensation  Acts.  It  is  also  due  to  the 
callousness  of  the  great  limited  liability  com- 
panies, and  to  the  petty  tyranny  of  those  who  find 
themselves  dressed  in  a  little  brief  authority.     To 


THE   PROBLEM  11 

minimise  the  risk  of  loss  to  themselves,  some  of 
those  who  insure  employers  against  accident  risks 
are  said  to  stipulate  in  certain  trades  that  no 
workmen  over  fifty  shall  be  engaged,  and  that 
no  workman  who  has  already  been  injured  shall 
be  re-engaged,  or  at  any  rate  re-insured.  It  is 
supposed,  apparently  with  little  reason  as  statistics 
obtained  by  Sir  John  Brunner  and  Sir  George 
Livesey  have  clearly  shown,  that  such  men  are 
more  liable  to  accident  than  younger  and  stronger 
men.  And  all  this  has  added  an  element  of 
peculiar  pathos  to  the  problem.  It  is  nothing 
short  of  a  tragedy  when  a  man  of  fifty,  still 
young  at  heart  and  in  many  ways  as  fit  as  ever 
he  was,  finds  that  he  can  no  longer  expect  to  get 
work  at  his  own  trade  but  must  join  the  mournful 
ranks  of  the  casual  and  unskilled  labourers.  The 
truth  is  that  no  outsider  can  realise  just  what  it 
means.  Old  Age  Pensions  will  require  to  begin 
at  fifty  or  even  earlier  if  they  are  to  meet  the 
exigencies  of  this  new  situation  ;  and  the  sympathy 
of  kindly  Christian  hearts  cannot  but  go  out  to 
those  who  are  thus  relegated  to  the  company  of 
the  worn-out  long  before  old  age  or  feebleness  has 
come.  As  for  the  problem  of  the  unemployed, 
recruited  as  they  are  in  so  many  ways,  and 
especially  by  the  enormous  development  of  labour- 
saving  machinery,  it  is  rapidly  becoming  a  grim 
social  spectre  even  in  the  summer  months.  It  is 
the  nightmare  of  those  who  bear  rule  in  the 
land,  and  especially  in  the  cities  and  large  towns. 
During  the  last  three  months  of  1908  the  number 
of  unemployed  registered  by  Distress  Committees 
in  the  United  Kingdom  was  respectively  95,059, 
123,162,  and  134,4:45,  which  reveals  a  problem   of 


12  THE   PROBLEM 

vast  magnitude.  The  number  of  those  who  have 
registered  their  names  at  the  Labour  Exchanges, 
now  happily  and  hopefully  in  operation,  tells 
the  same  sad  tale.  Every  winter  calls  on  local 
and  imperial  authorities  alike  to  face  a  huge 
mass  of  destitution  which  is  all  the  more  appal- 
ling that  it  persists  in  the  midst  of  enormous 
wealth  and  sybarite  self-indulgence  ;  and  as  yet 
nothing  in  the  shape  of  a  thoroughgoing  remedy 
has  been  even  suggested.  The  "  right  to  work  "  is 
no  more  than  an  empty  formula  as  yet ;  while  the 
Distress  Committees  set  up  under  Mr.  Walter 
Long's  Unemployed  Workmen  Act  of  1905  have 
only  served  to  reveal  how  vast  and  how  difficult 
the  problem  is.  Hitherto,  apart  from  the  Labour 
Exchanges  which  have  just  been  begun,  any  sort 
of  stop-gap  has  been  deemed  sufficient ;  and  all 
that  has  been  hoped  for  has  been  that  the  distress 
would  not  become  too  obtrusive,  and  that  there 
would  be  no  disturbance  of  the  peace.  There  has 
been  a  maximum  of  waste,  and  nothing  of  a  per- 
manent character  has  been  achieved.  Nor  is  this 
in  any  real  sense  a  matter  merely  of  Free  Trade 
or  Tariff  Reform.  The  problem  of  the  unemployed 
is  often  as  acute  in  protected  Germany  and  America 
as  in  free-trade  Britain. 

The  labour  problem  is  thus  beset  with  difficulties 
and  bristles  with  complications  both  moral  and 
economic.  It  is  tremendously  concrete,  too, 
although  it  has  so  often  been  dealt  with  in  abstract 
and  fantastic  ways.  The  strongest  passions  are 
easily  aroused  in  connection  with  it,  and  in  the 
conflict  between  idealism  and  elemental  needs 
and  ruthless  greed  the  ideal  is  only  too  seldom 
victorious.     On  the  labourer's  side  the  problem  is 


THE  PROBLEM  13 

even  more  than  one  of  his  daily  bread,  it  is  one  of 
life  and  death.  On  the  side  of  the  capitalist  the 
most  determined  opposition  to  any  radical  change 
is  inspired  not  only  by  all  sorts  of  vested  interests, 
but  by  the  most  inveterate  use  and  wont.  The 
subordination  of  the  many  to  the  few  seems  to  the 
dominant  few  to  have  all  the  force  of  a  natural 
law,  and  to  be  in  harmony  with  the  eternal  fitness 
of  things.  Not  only  so,  but  the  labour  problem  is 
closely  bound  up  with  many  other  difficult  pro- 
blems such  as  those  connected  with  education, 
intemperance,  and  the  land.  So  much  is  this  the 
case  that  any  easy  solution  of  it  must  be  viewed 
with  suspicion.  This  kind  goeth  not  out  but  by 
prayer  and  fasting.  No  man  can  become  a  saint 
in  his  sleep,  nor  can  any  nation  obtain  its  freedom 
without  agonising  for  it,  or  retain  it  without  un- 
ceasing vigilance  and  sacrifice.  Yet  nations  are 
born  in  a  day ;  and  after  long,  weary  years  of  pre- 
paration social  movements  which  at  heart  are 
really  moral  and  spiritual,  often  ripen  so  fast  that 
more  may  be  done  in  a  few  glorious,  fruitful  years 
than  had  been  done  in  centuries  before.  It  is  as 
when  springtime  comes  with  its  new  beauty  and 
new  life,  and  the  long  winter  is  forgotten  in  a  few 
days  of  wondrous  growth.  So  much  is  this  the 
case,  indeed,  that  shortsighted  and  prejudiced 
onlookers  often  see  nothing  but  the  rapid  ripening 
and  the  harvest,  and  ignore  or  even  deny  the 
weary  years  of  self-denial  and  toil  of  which  these 
are  the  wondrous  fruits. 

Hence  it  is  that  the  influence  of  the  gospel  in  con- 
nection with  the  upward  movement  of  the  labourer 
has  sometimes  been  overlooked;  and  that  in  the 
present  era  of  stress  and  strain  so  few  are  turning 


14  THE  PROBLEM 

with  expectant  eyes  to  Christ.  Only  too  many  who 
ought  to  be  proclaiming  His  lordship  are  silent, 
and  some  are  hostile  after  a  fashion  which  nothing 
but  sheer  ignorance  can  explain.  The  method  of 
the  gospel  has  always  been  to  begin  far  down  in 
the  silent  depths  where  the  roots  are  to  be  found. 
It  sets  itself  to  raise  the  whole  level  of  life  and 
thought,  and  sometimes  its  noblest  social  achieve- 
ments have  been  incidental  rather  than  direct. 
Society  can  no  more  be  regenerated  by  the  various 
social  problems  being  dealt  with  apart  from  each 
other  than  a  man  can  be  understood  if  he  be 
thought  of  as  if  he  were  built  in  water-tight  com- 
partments like  a  modern  ship.  The  whole  being 
of  man,  the  entire  structure  of  the  social  order, 
must  be  dealt  with  if  any  of  our  outstanding 
problems  are  to  be  permanently  solved,  and  if  our 
repentance  is  not  to  be  repented  of;  and  that  is 
why  the  gospel  alone  can  provide  the  true  and 
final  solution.  It  alone  can  go  down  to  the 
depths  and  deal  with  the  causes  of  the  evils  we 
deplore.  It  alone  can  achieve  the  impossible, 
since  it  alone  can  give  new  life  to  the  dead.  It 
alone  creates  new  ideals,  implants  new  longings,  fills 
the  soul  with  an  abhorrence  of  evil  surroundings, 
and  provides  the  new  motive  power.  The  wail  of 
every  other  system  has  been  "  We  know  the  right 
and  wish  the  right  and  yet  the  wrong  pursue." 
The  gospel  alone  brings  life,  and  life  alone  can 
suffice  for  the  work  which  must  be  done  ;  and  any 
Christian  who  abates  that  claim  is  disloyal  to 
his  faith  and  his  Lord.  After  legislation  has 
spoken  its  last  word — and  it  is  still  far  from 
having  done  that — the  still  small  voice  of  Divine 
truth  has  much  to  say.     Even  where  the  influence 


THE  PROBLEM  15 

of  the  gospel  does  not  appear  in  the  record  of 
what  has  been  already  accomplished  for  the 
labourer  it  was  nevertheless  it  that  made  progress 
and  reform  possible.  The  record  is  often  de- 
fective ;  spiritual  forces  are  notoriously  elusive  ; 
and  the  kingdom  of  God  does  not  come  with 
observation  of  men.  History  is  often  written  by 
those  who  are  prejudiced  and  blind,  and  there  are 
inquirers  who  never  look  beneath  the  surface  for 
the  spiritual  influences  which  are  the  mightiest  of 
the  mighty.  Not  once  only,  but  many  a  time,  the 
all-important  fact  has  been  missed  that  it  was  the 
gospel  which  had  created  the  atmosphere  in  which 
the  new  spirit  of  reform  was  able  to  live  ;  and 
which  above  all  else  gave  the  energy  which  swept 
every  obstacle  aside.  That  it  has  often  influenced 
those  who  were  ignorant  of  its  claims  and  even 
hostile  to  its  Lord  has  made  it  all  the  more 
difficult  for  those  who  had  not  the  love-light  in 
their  eyes  to  say,  "  Lo,  Christ  is  there." 

What  exactly  is  meant  by  Christianity  in  the 
phrase  Christianity  and  Labour  will  become  clear 
as  the  discussion  proceeds  ;  but  meanwhile  it  may 
be  frankly  admitted  that  -when  difficulties  arise 
owing  to  the  unworthiness  of  the  human  ex- 
ponents of  the  Divine  truth,  shelter  will  not  be 
sought  for  behind  the  distinction  which  some  so 
persistently  make  between  what  is  called  the 
Christianity  of  the  Churches  and  the  Christianity 
of  Christ.  It  is  true  that  many  blunders  have 
been  made,  and  that  the  true  progress  of  the 
gospel  is  not  to  be  sought  for  in  any  external 
organisations,  but  in  the  spiritual  movements 
which  persist  in  spite  of  all  the  egotism  and 
ambition  through  which  the  mystery  of  iniquity 


16  THE  PROBLEM 

has  manifested  itself,  not  in  one  Church  only,  but 
in  many,  if  not  all.  It  is  also  true  that  we  must 
judge  righteous  judgment,  remembering  that  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  not  of  this  world,  and  that 
God  estimates  things  after  an  inward  and  spiritual 
fashion.  Yet  we  must  take  Christianity,  as  we 
would  take  any  other  system,  as  it  has  manifested 
itself  in  history  ;  and  far  too  many  apologists  seem 
to  think  that  any  inconsistency,  no  matter  how 
glaring,  may  be  ignored  or  condoned  by  insisting 
on  this  distinction,  sometimes  so  painfully  obvious, 
between  Christ's  Christianity  and  that  of  the 
Churches.  It  might  fairly  enough  be  said  of 
republicanism  that  it  is  different  from  the 
republic  which  grew  out  of  the  great  French 
Revolution  which  was  remaking  Europe  when 
the  nineteenth  century  began.  But  while  that 
is  so,  and  ought  to  be  borne  in  mind  in  any 
attempt  to  estimate  the  merits  of  republicanism, 
it  would  be  quite  otherwise  were  the  claim  ad- 
vanced that  republicanism  is  different  from  any, 
or  all,  of  the  republics  which  have  ever  existed, 
and  must  be  judged  apart  from  them.  It  would 
be  pointed  out,  inevitably  and  justly,  that  we 
have  no  means  of  knowing  what  republicanism 
is  in  actual  experience  except  through  republics ; 
and  that,  doctrinaire  writers  apart,  it  must  stand 
or  fall  by  its  fruits  as  seen  in  the  various  attempts 
which  have  been  made  to  embody  its  principles 
and  aspirations.  Theories  which  have  never  been 
embodied  are  open  to  the  objection  that  they 
cannot  be  made  concrete  ;  and  we  have  no  right  to 
expect  a  different  principle  to  be  adopted  when 
we  are  trying  to  estimate  what  Christianity  is, 
or   what  it  has  done  or   may  yet   do.     For  all 


THE  PROBLEM  17 

practical  purposes  as  a  factor  in  the  solution  of  the 
labour  problem,  or  any  other  problem,  it  must  be 
taken  very  much  as  we  find  it  among  those  who 
are  Christians,  or  at  any  rate  are  all  we  have  for 
Christians.  It  may  fairly  enough  be  argued  that 
none  of  the  various  Churches  fully  represents  the 
mind  and  purpose  of  Christ,  but  to  say  that  all 
through  the  centuries  the  gospel  has  never  made 
its  power  so  truly  felt  as  to  be  actually  embodied 
in  the  life  of  any  Christian  community  is  to 
suggest  that  it  is  impracticable  and  impossible. 
Such  a  claim  has  no  apologetic  value  and  can  only 
strengthen  the  attack.  If  Christianity .  has  never 
yet  been  seen  in  its  truth  and  beauty  after  all 
these  ages,  we  can  have  no  guarantee  that  it 
will  ever  be  seen  after  such  a  fashion.  For  better 
or  worse  even  those  who  know  well  that  the 
Christianity  of  Christ  is  grander  and  fuller  than 
the  Christianity  of  all  the  Churches  put  together, 
must  admit  that  we  cannot  but  estimate  its  value 
for  the  work  of  reform  by  what  it  has  actually 
done  for  and  through  those  who  have  come  under 
its  influence.  It  may  be  true  that  in  opposition 
to  the  mind  and  example  of  Him  whose  name 
they  bear  the  Churches  have  only  too  often  been 
the  allies  of  the  capitalists  and  the  champions  of 
the  comfortable  middle  classes ;  and  that  their 
ministers,  whether  pastors  or  presbyters  or 
priests,  have  only  too  often  been  content  to  be 
the  chaplains  of  the  bourgeoisie;  although  that 
is  far  from  being  the  whole  truth.  But  it  remains 
true  and  undeniable  that  the  moral  value  of  any 
system  or  faith  and  its  power  to  mould  and 
redeem  society  must  be  gathered  from  its  influence 
on  those  who  hold  its  tenets  and  profess  to  be  its 

Christianity  atid  Labour.  3 


18  THE  PROBLEM 

exponents  and  disciples.  After  Christianity  has 
had  nineteen  centuries  in  which  to  show  what  it 
is  and  what  it  can  do  it  is  not  open  to  its  friends 
to  urge  that  it  ought  not  to  be  judged  by  what 
we  now  find  existing  under  the  name.  For  the 
practical  work  of  life  it  is  no  more  possible  to 
estimate  the  worth  of  the  gospel  apart  from 
Christians  as  we  find  them  in  history  and  the 
ordinary  daily  life,  than  it  would  be  to  estimate 
the  worth  of  Stoicism  apart  from  the  Stoics.  Nor 
would  it  be  Christian  to  attempt  to  evade  the 
issue  in  such  a  fashion.  How  quickly  such  a  claim 
would  be  brushed  aside  alike  by  the  champions 
of  the  Christianity  of  the  Churches  and  of  the 
Christianity  of  Christ  were  it  made  on  behalf  of 
Confucianism  or  Mohammedanism !  They  would 
at  once  insist  that  we  can  only  judge  of  the  value 
of  the  classics  of  Confucius  by  seeing  what  they 
have  made  of  the  Chinese  and  what  the  Chinese 
have  made  of  them ;  and  that  Mohammedanism, 
as  we  have  it  in  Turkey  or  Persia,  with  its 
sensuality  and  slavery  and  corruption,  must  be 
taken  as  the  practical  and  most  significant  exposi- 
tion of  the  Koran.  No  Christian  is  all  the  gospel 
would  have  him  be,  and  in  the  gospel  itself  there 
are  still  vast  territories  to  be  explored,  profound 
revelations  for  those  who  do  the  will  of  God ;  but 
it  is  only  through  those  whose  lives  it  moulds  and 
whose  thoughts  and  deeds  it  inspires  and  directs 
that  Christianity  can  influence  the  social  life  of 
the  nations,  solve  the  labour  problem  or  any  other, 
and  make  its  true  meaning  and  nature  manifest. 
"  What  East  London  requires  is  Christianity,"  said 
one  on  whose  spirit  the  burden  of  the  sheep  with- 
out a   shepherd    lay  heavily.      "No,"   replied   his 


THE   PROBLEM  19 

friend,  "what  East  London  requires  is  Christians," 
and  he  was  right.  The  gospel  must  become  con- 
crete in  human  lives  before  it  can  inspire  men 
and  lift  them  up  ;  and  it  is  through  those  in  whom 
it  thus  becomes  concrete  that  its  value  and  power 
become  known. 

In  every  age  there  have  been  revolts  against 
the  Christianity  of  the  Churches,  and  strenuous 
appeals  made  for  a  return  to  the  simplicity  of 
the  truth  as  Christ  proclaimed  and  lived  it;  and 
our  own  generation  has  been  no  exception  to 
the  rule.  It  has  heard  the  cry  "  Back  to  Christ " 
as  loudly  as  any,  and  from  as  many  quarters. 
Yet  it  can  hardly  be  affirmed  that  these  various 
revolts  and  appeals  throughout  the  centuries  have 
made  any  material  difference  either  in  the  form 
or  the  substance  of  the  Christian  message,  or 
that  they  have  added  appreciably  to  its  effective- 
ness on  behalf  of  the  toiling  millions.  After  all, 
it  is  to  the  main  stream  of  the  Church — even 
although  there  have  been  times  when  every  one 
of  its  attributes  as  One,  Holy,  Catholic,  and 
Apostolic  were  in  practice  denied — as  it  has 
flowed  down  through  the  ages,  and  done  its 
healing,  fertilising  work  as  the  river  of  God, 
that  we  must  look  for  the  historical  and  autho- 
rised exposition  of  the  gospel,  and  not  to  eddies 
here  and  there  or  to  any  sporadic  outbreaks. 
For  better  or  for  worse,  and  with  every  passionate 
yearning  to  make  it  worthier  its  Lord  and  more 
in  harmony  with  its  credentials,  we  must  take 
historical  Christianity  very  much  as  we  find  it, 
and  refuse  to  shelter  ourselves  from  criticism  by 
references  to  the  Christianity  of  Christ.  Even 
Christ  Himself  must  stand  or  fall  by  what  He 


20  THE   PROBLEM 

makes  of  those  who  come  under  His  influence ; 
and  if  we  are  to  be  able  to  claim  honestly  that 
Christianity  has  been  the  labourer's  best  friend, 
and  that  the  gospel  has  already  done  so  much 
for  labour  that  we  are  warranted  in  looking  to 
it  to  guide  us  all  the  way  through  the  jungle,  we 
must  be  able  to  show  that  it  has  manifested  this 
friendship  and  done  this  healing  work  along  the 
lines  of  its  ordinary  development  down  through 
the  ages.  And  that  is  just  what  we  hope  to  be 
able  to  demonstrate,  making  only  one  proviso,  that 
it  is  to  the  Church  in  its  entirety  and  at  its  best 
we  must  look  in  estimating  what  its  attitude  to 
labour  has  been. 

All  this  being  so,  any  honest  inquiry  into  the 
history  of  the  relations  of  Christianity  and  labour 
is  not  only  beset  with  many  difficulties,  inasmuch 
as  it  brings  us  into  touch  with  strong  passions 
and  inveterate  prejudices  as  well  as  with  deeply 
intrenched  vested  interests,  it  is  also  intensely 
practical.  It  stands  or  falls  by  what  has  actually 
been  done  and  what  may  fairly  be  looked  for  in  the 
days  to  come.  And,  in  spite  of  all  the  difficulties 
and  hindrances,  there  are  many  encouragements 
to  go  forward  with  high  expectations  and  in  no 
merely  apologetic  spirit  or  antiquarian  interest. 
It  is  only  by  seeing  what  has  been  accomplished 
in  the  past  that  we  can  discover  what  may  be 
hoped  for  in  the  days  to  come,  and  also  how 
the  best  results  may  be  attained.  Everywhere 
the  cry  "  Who  will  show  us  any  good  ? "  may  be 
heard  by  those  whose  ears  are  open,  and  nothing 
but  culpable  ignorance  of  what  has  been  already 
done  can  warrant  the  belief  which  some  seem  to 
cherish,  that  the  nations  may  advance   to   their 


THE  PROBLEM  21 

golden  age  under  another  leadership  than  that 
of  Christ.  But  even  Christians  are  not  pro- 
claiming as  they  should  that,  if  only  the  govern- 
ment were  on  His  shoulders  and  they  were 
genuinely  loyal  to  Him,  He  would  solve  every 
problem,  right  every  wrong,  and  usher  in  the 
Millennium.  Many  of  them  do  not  even  seem  to 
be  sure  that  He  has  anything  to  say  about  the 
present  distress,  or  about  such  things  as  the  labour 
problem.  Some  of  them  actually  think  of  the 
State,  which  is  God's  ordinance  and  ought  to 
be  as  holy  as  the  Church,  as  the  present  evil 
world  which  they  have  been  called  to  hate,  under 
another  name. 

There  are  several  reasons  why  an  inquiry  into 
the  history  of  what  the  gospel  has  done  for  the 
labourer,  as  it  has  led  him  up  from  slavery  to 
citizenship,  with  the  promise  of  more  to  follow, 
is  both  timely  and  urgent  at  the  present  juncture. 
For  one  thing,  the  older  laissez-faire  doctrines, 
which  were  held  in  such  reverence  as  almost 
sacrosanct,  and  which  have  hitherto  dominated  all 
action  concerning  labour  so  remorselessly,  are  now 
so  hopelessly  discredited  that  no  one  seems  so  poor 
as  to  do  them  reverence.*     If  they  are  not  quite 

*  "  All  is  changed  since  the  time  when  Carlyle  and  Ruskin 
lifted  up  their  voices  in  the  wilderness  to  an  trnbelieving 
generation"  (Kirkup,  "A  History  of  Socialism,"  p.  271). 
"The  simple  creed  of  individualism,  full  of  virtue  as  it  was 
for  many  a  century,  will  no  longer  work,  for  we  know  that 
there  is  more  in  freedom  than  emancipation.  The  creed  that 
would  not  merely  supplant  it,  but  sublate  it,  taking  up  its 
truth  in  correcting  its  errors,  is  hardly  formulated ;  and  in 
consequence  there  is  much  confusion"  (Professor  Jones, 
"The  Working  Faith  of  the  Social  Reformer,"  Preface,  p.  ix). 


22  THE  PROBLEM 

banished  to  Saturn  they  are  no  longer  looked  upon 
as  a  kind  of  economic  appendix  to  the  Decalogue, 
to  be  obeyed  by  those  who  treated  the  Ten 
Commandments  with  scanty  respect.  Even  those 
who  deplore  the  fact  and  view  it  as  of  evil  omen 
admit  that  an  enormous  change  has  taken  place 
during  the  last  thirty  or  forty  years.  It  is  no 
longer  held  by  any  reputable  authority,  either 
in  the  Church  or  the  State,  that  the  gospel  of 
buying  in  the  cheapest  market  and  selling  in  the 
dearest  will  bring  social  salvation  or  suffice  for 
every  emergency.  No  one  is  now  fatuous  enough 
to  believe  that,  valuable  and  far-reaching  as  the 
laws  of  supply  and  demand  are,  they  can  be 
expected  to  regulate  all  human  relationships. 
Even  the  selfishly  obtuse  have  been  forced  to  see 
that  it  is  not  the  whole  truth  to  teach  that  if 
men  and  women  are  only  left  to  themselves  they 
will  find  their  proper  level  as  water  does.  Even 
the  keenest  doctrinaires  are  coming  to  see  that 
in  a  complicated  social  organism  like  ours  men 
and  women  can  only  find  their  level  and  do  their 
best  work  if  artificial  barriers  are  thrown  down ; 
and  that  if  we  are  to  rely  on  natural  laws  to  solve 
our  problems  we  must  supply  the  conditions 
under  which  alone  they  can  operate  freely  and 
successfully.  The  best  thought  of  our  time,  under 
the  guidance  and  inspiration  of  Christian  truth, 
shudders  at  some  of  the  results  of  the  competitive 
struggle  which  drives  so  many  weak  ones  to  the 
wall  or  tramples  them  ruthlessly  underfoot. 
Those  who  are  obedient  to  the  heavenly  vision 
find  it  impossible  to  admit  that  the  level  which 
multitudes  meanwhile  reach  can  be  their  right 
level,     or    that    their    condition    is    other    than 


THE  PROBLEM  23 

intolerable.     Not  even   the   sanction  of  profound 

philosophers  and  scientific  experts  can  induce  our 

generation   to   believe   that    the    doctrine   of  the 

survival  of   the  fittest,  through   the  struggle  for 

existence,    is    applicable    in    the    same     sense    to 

animals    and    men  ;    to    a   rabbit  warren    and    a 

human    home.     Nor  will   any  kind   of  argument 

convince  them  that  it  is  mawkish  sentimentality 

to   do  what  they  can  to  keep  the  maimed  alive 

and   save   the  stricken  and    unfit.     Some    of  the 

wisest  and  best  of  mankind  have  come  from  the 

ranks  of  those  whom  the  rigid  scientific  logic  of 

materialism  would  have  consigned  to  destruction. 

Even  at  its  worst,   the    system    now   so   largely 

discredited,  and  which   survives  only  in  virtue  of 

its   own  momentum,  was  never  fully  carried  out 

to  its  logical  issues,  thanks  to  kindly  human  hearts 

and  Christlike  yearnings.     But  in  so  far  as  it  was 

carried  out,  it  was  injurious  alike  to  those  who 

rose  to  the  top   and   to   those   who  went  under. 

It  is  the   national  safety  and  well-being  as  well 

as  the  national  honour  which  are  involved.     The 

logic   of  the  heart  must  be  open-eyed  as  well  as 

the  logic  of  the  brain.     Political   economy  is   no 

longer  the  dismal  science ;  and  many  of  its  truest 

exponents  find  a  place  in   it  for   the   appeals   of 

brotherhood  and  the  spirit  of  Christ,  as  well  as 

for  the  axioms  of  the  market-place  and  the  Stock 

Exchange.     And  if  in  the  transition  stage  in  which 

we  are  now  involved  mistakes  are  made  and  there 

is  loss  as  well  as  gain,  the  truth  is  great  and  will 

prevail. 

It  is  one  of  the  outstanding  ironies  of  modern 
history  that  the  laissez-faire  creed  was  born  in 
orthodox  surroundings,  and  called  forth  no  protest 


24  THE  PROBLEM 

at  the  time  from  the  Christian  communities.  The 
reason  for  that,  however,  is  not  that  these  com- 
munities, tinged  although  they  were  with  ration- 
alism and  moderatism,  were  callous  ;  but  that  they 
accepted  the  comfortable  doctrine  that  if  the 
"  letting-alone "  policy  were  only  allowed  to 
operate  fully  and  freely  everything  would  come 
right  in  the  end.  It  was  only  after  it  had  been 
weighed  in  the  balance  and  found  wanting  that 
it  was  seen  that  it  really  amounted  to  the  pro- 
clamation of  universal  selfishness  as  the  working 
principle  of  life ;  and,  whatever  it  may  have  been 
a  century  ago,  it  is  pitiful  now  when  Christians 
support  the  Darwinian  struggle  for  existence  and 
oppose  altruism  as  socialistic  and  even  atheistic. 
The  influence  of  the  new  and  more  Christian 
outlook  on  the  social  organism  has  already  been 
great  in  our  imperial  politics,  and  cannot  but  be 
greater  still  as  the  new  truth  is  better  understood 
and  is  more  fully  applied.  The  older  party  cries 
no  longer  suffice.  As  the  new  leaven  works  they 
appeal  less  and  less  to  the  spiritual  and  free  until 
now  they  are  hardly  so  much  as  heard.  The 
old  lines  of  demarcation  have  no  longer  any 
significance,  and  no  longer  evoke  any  enthusiasm. 
The  shrewd  editor  of  a  great  Scottish  newspaper  * 
declared  recently  that  the  new  interest  in  social 
questions  had  destroyed  the  interest  which  used 
to  be  taken  in  such  a  question  as  Disestablishment. 
There  are  now  groups  within  each  of  the  old 
historical  parties,  and  ere  long  there  may  be 
groups  instead  of  parties  ;  at  least  for  social  ques- 
tions.    It  passes  the  wit  of  men  who  are  in  earnest 

*  Dr.  William  Wallace,  of  the  Glasgow  Herald. 


THE  PROBLEM  26 

and  are  face  to  face  with  the  actual  problems  of 
the  daily  life  to  discover  why  Whig  and  Tory — if 
there  are  Whigs  and  Tories  now — cannot  agree  to 
deal  with  our  social  evils  resolutely  and  unitedly 
at  a  time  when  the  wolf  is  at  the  door  and  the 
supreme  interests  of  the  nation  are  at  stake.  The 
extension  of  the  franchise  is  all  very  well,  and 
the  extension  of  local  self-government  may  bring 
blessings  in  its  train ;  but  the  right  solution  of 
the  labour  problem  along  healthy  Christian  lines 
would  mean  infinitely  more  for  the  nation  than 
either.  It  concerns  the  homes  of  the  Empire  and 
its  happiness  and  ^growth  as  no  merely  academic 
question  ever  can.  So  much  is  this  the  case  that 
the  whole  party  system  must  go  if  the  solution 
cannot  be  reached  otherwise,  and  the  moral  and 
spiritual  bearings  of  the  situation  must  be  faced 
without  the  leave  of  the  party  Whips  being  either 
asked  or  given.  One  danger,  indeed,  of  the  situa- 
tion as  it  now  exists  is  that  the  very  urgency  and 
necessity  of  social  reform  may  be  exploited  in 
unworthy  ways  so  as  to  set  class  against  class  in 
the  State.  That  way  lies  revolution,  and  not  such 
reforms  as  have  done  most  for  the  labourer  in  the 
past  and  which  ought  in  the  near  future  to  perfect 
the  work  of  regeneration  which  is  to  make  ours 
a  free  and  happy  land.  The  nation  eagerly  waits 
some  great  constructive  policy  which  will  make 
it  industrially  and  commercially  prosperous  by 
making  it  not  only  free,  but  sober  and  content. 
It  could  not  be  said  as  jauntily  now  as  it  was  in 
Sir  William  Harcourt's  time  that  we  are  all 
Socialists,  for  Socialism  is  far  more  of  a  definite 
reality  now  and  the  situation  has  become  far  more 
intense  ;  but  the  nation  as  a  whole  will  not  quarrel 


26  THE   PROBLEM 

over  a  name,  if  there  is  the  prospect  of  true 
amelioration,  and  if  it  be  recognised  that  in  addi- 
tion to  bailing  the  water  out  of  the  ship  of  the 
State  we  must  stop  the  leaks  through  which  it  is 
pouring  in.  When  politicians  seek  to  discredit 
reforms  on  which  the  hearts  of  the  people  are  set 
by  describing  them  as  Socialistic,  they  are  simply 
promoting  Socialism.  Even  among  those  who  are 
not  very  acute  the  conclusion  is  inevitable  that 
if  such  things  as  Old  Age  Pensions,  State  interven- 
tion in  Labour  disputes.  Labour  Exchanges,  and 
the  Trade  Boards  Act  are  Socialism,  then  Socialism 
is  not  a  thing  to  be  greatly  dreaded. 

But  great  as  the  effect  of  the  revolution  which 
has  taken  place  so  swiftly  and  surely  in  the 
economic  outlook  has  been  or  can  be  in  politics, 
it  ought  to  be  even  greater  in  connection  with 
Christian  effort  and  the  attitude  of  the  Church 
to  labour.  To  imagine  that  the  Church  has 
nothing  to  do  with  such  matters  is  to  be  under 
the  influence  of  a  purely  pagan  conception  of  the 
universe  and  of  the  State.  It  is  to  include  the 
social  order  which  is  Divine,  or  ought  to  be, 
among  those  evil  things  which  the  Christian  must 
oppose  to  the  death  as  of  the  earth,  earthy.  Yet 
in  addition  to  the  sectaries,  of  whom  there  are 
but  few,  who  abjure  politics  because  their  kingdom 
is  not  of  this  world — although  most  of  them  are 
as  eager  as  their  neighbours  to  get  their  share  of 
the  world's  goods — there  are  multitudes  of  earnest 
men  and  women  who  would  be  shocked  at  such 
an  attitude  in  theory  who  nevertheless  adopt  it  in 
practice.  They  never  lift  a  hand  to  secure  better 
government  either  in  the  community  or  the 
nation.     They  do  nothing  to  secure  either  better 


THE  PROBLEM  27 

laws  or  the  better  administration  of  existing  laws 
in  the  interest  of  the  weak,  or  the  tempted,  or  the 
children ;    and  all  the  while  they  plume  themselves 
on  the  superior  piety  which  leads  them  to  be  such 
separatists.       But    they    ought    to   be    compelled 
somehow  to  consider  how  any  worthy  solution  of 
the  many-sided  social  problem  can  be  looked  for, 
or  how  the  kingdom  of  God  is  to  come  all  round, 
unless  the  whole  influence  of  applied  Christianity 
is  directed  to  bring  it  about.*     True  religion,  like 
Jacob's  ladder,  must  rest  firm  and  sure  on  the  solid 
earth  or  it  will  never  reach  the  skies ;  f    and  it 
is  only  in  fellowship  with  Christ  and  by  walking 
in   His   light  that  the   right  sense  of  proportion 
between   the   things    which    are    seen  and  those 
which  are  unseen  can  be  obtained  and  kept.     Christ 
alone  can  lead  the   nations  in   such   a  way  that 
there  will  be  deliverance   alike   from  worldliness 
and  other- worldliness ;  from  a  heartless  materialism 
and  a  fruitless  idealism.      Only  with  the  help  of 
those  who  know  the  truth  can  lofty  ideals  of  duty 
and  justice,  of  freedom  and  devotion  be  set  free 
from   bondage  to  the   desire  for  pleasure,   profit, 
and  ease  ;  as  if  Paradise  meant  "  eight  hours  for 
sleep,  eight  hours  for  play,  eight  hours  for  work, 
and  eight  shillings  a  day."     So  long  as  the  Church 

*  ' '  The  Chvirch  should  create  in  all  its  members  an  eager 
desire  to  lessen  the  sorrow,  the  suffering,  and  the  injustice  as 
as  well  as  the  sin  of  the  world  "  (Dr.  Dale  at  International 
Congregational  Council,  1891). 

+  "Most  working  men  don't  care  a  rap  for  the  Church 
to-day,  because  they  believe  it  is  all  up  in  the  air,  or  has 
simply  to  do  with  the  hereafter.  But  I  believe  they  are 
naturally  religious,  though  their  religion  does  not  always 
express  itself  in  an  orthodox  manner  "  (Charles  Stelzle). 


28  THE  PROBLEM 

of  Christ  is  loyal  to  its  Lord  and  Master  it  can 
never  cease  to  proclaim  that  there  can  be  no 
blessedness  without  goodness  and  God;  but  in 
order  that  her  perennial  proclamation  of  this  may 
be  effective  she  must  take  her  place  at  the  head 
of  every  genuine  movement  for  breaking  the  rod 
of  the  oppressor  and  letting  the  oppressed  go  free. 
It  was  to  save  men  in  all  the  round  circle  of  their 
being,  and  not  merely  to  save  their  souls,  that  the 
Saviour  came.  The  new  political  economy  ought 
to  be  as  distinctively  Christian  as  the  old  was 
pagan,  and  no  opportunity  ought  to  be  lost  for 
claiming  the  new  social  aspirations  of  our  genera- 
tion and  all  its  strivings  for  Him  whose  Spirit  has 
given  them  birth.* 

Another  reason  why  such  an  inquiry  into  the 
historical  relations  of  Christianity  and  labour  is 
timely  and  urgent  is  that  labour  is  now  organised 
for  the  fray  in  such  a  fashion  that,  whether  the 
politicians  and  ecclesiastics  wish  it  or  not,  the 
labour  problem  must  soon  be  dealt  with  in  the 
most  thoroughgoing  fashion.  Once  again  a  crisis 
has  come  when  the  voice  of   Christ  ought  to  be 

*  Cf.  Professor  Ingram  in  Encyclopcedia  Britannica,  vol.  19, 
p.  401  :  "What  is  now  most  urgent  is  not  legislative  interfer- 
ence on  any  large  scale  with  the  industrial  relations,  but  the 
formation,  in  both  the  higher  and  lower  regions  of  the  industrial 
world,  of  profoimd  convictions  as  to  social  duties  and  some 
more  effective  mode  than  at  present  exists  of  diffusing,  main- 
taining, and  applying  those  convictions."  "The  solution, 
indeed,  must  be  at  all  times  largely  a  moral  one  ;  and  it  is 
the  spiritual  rather  than  the  temporal  power  that  is  the 
natiu"al  agency  for  redressing  or  mitigating  most  of  the  evils 
associated  with  industrial  life."  "The  neglect  of  these  con- 
siderations appears  to  us  the  principal  danger  to  which  the 
contemporary  German  school  of  economists  is  exposed." 


THE   PROBLEM  29 

heard ;  and  if  only  His  Church  would  deliver 
His  message  in  its  fulness  men  would  still 
listen  to  it,  for  His  is  the  Divine  right  to  rule 
which  cannot  be  gainsaid  and  always  ensures 
followers.  Mere  platitudes-  about  labour  and 
capital  being  simply  two  sides  of  one  whole 
neither  of  which  can  stand  without  the  other, 
can  no  longer  suffice  to  avert  the  deluge.  That 
is  one  of  the  half-truths  which  are  often  wholly 
false.  The  attempts  of  the  caucuses  and  the  party 
managers  to  guide  the  new  forces  into  the  old 
grooves  are  ridiculously  and  pathetically  in  vain. 
They  pipe  but  the  others  will  not  dance.  Now 
that  the  labourers  have  the  vote  they  only  require 
organisation  and  unity  of  purpose  to  be  supreme 
in  a  State  like  ours  which  is  governed  by  majori- 
ties ;  and  these  conditions  are  being  supplied 
with  unlooked-for  and  portentous  rapidity.  The 
genuine  surprise  of  those  who  prophesy  fair  things 
and  cry  "peace,  peace"  where  there  is  no  peace, 
when  their  predictions  are  falsified,  only  serves  to 
show  how  blind  even  the  most  acute  may  be  to 
the  signs  of  the  times.  It  is  not  merely  that  the 
workman  who  was  once  a  slave  and  then  a  serf, 
but  is  now  an  employee  and  a  voter,  can  turn  the 
scale  in  many  constituencies  ;  it  is  that  those  who 
have  perforce  been  dumb  heretofore  have  now 
found  a  voice,  yea,  many  voices,  and  that  they  must 
be  listened  to.  Every  wound  in  the  body  politic 
— and  there  are  many  such — has  now  a  tongue ; 
and  while  it  is  true  that  those  who  are  just  coming 
to  their  own,  so  far  as  the  franchise  is  concerned, 
have  been  frequently  exploited  by  the  demagogue 
and  self-seeker  for  their  own  ends,  there  are  many 
indications  that  that  phase  is  drawing  to  a  close. 


30  THE  PROBLEM 

A  prominent  Unionist  politician  declared  not  long 
since  that  the  average  for  ability  among  the 
Labour  members  in  the  late  Parliament  was  higher 
than  among  any  of  the  other  parties.  And  prob- 
ably that  is  true  also  as  regards  earnestness  and 
moral  character.  Nothing  in  connection  with  the 
modern  labour  movement  has  been  more  remark- 
able than  the  courage  and  independence  of  many 
of  the  labour  leaders.  In  connection,  for  example, 
with  the  troubles  in  Northumberland  and  South 
Wales  consequent  on  the  coming  of  the  Eight 
Hours  Act  into  operation,  they  have  played  a  very 
noble  part.  Far  more  truly  than  the  representa- 
tives of  any  of  the  other  political  parties  those  of 
them  who  are  in  Parliament  have  refused  to  be 
mere  delegates,  and  not  a  few  of  them  have  risked 
their  all  in  their  devotion  to  justice  and  duty. 
That  they  are  primarily  concerned  in  seeking  to 
promote  the  interests  of  their  own  class  is  in- 
evitable, and  is  just  what  all  the  other  parties 
have  done. 

It  is  very  strange  to  hear  landowners  and 
brewers  who  have  consistently  used  every  atom 
of  their  political  influence  to  secure  their  own 
personal  ends  denounce  the  Labour  members  as 
only  representing  a  class.  Even  from  the  sinister 
side  of  this  accusation  they  are  less  culpable  than 
the  others,  inasmuch  as  their  class  is  more  than 
any  other  synonymous  with  the  nation.  In  these 
circumstances,  so  unique  and  momentous,  and  so 
charged  with  vast  possibilities,  if  a  study  of  the 
whole  situation  is  specially  urgent  for  any,  it  is 
supremely  so  for  those  who  bear  the  name  of 
Christ  and  believe  in  the  coming  of  the  kingdom 
which  is  righteousness  and  peace  and  joy  in  the 


THE  PROBLEM  31 

Holy  Ghost.  How  pitiful  it  would  be  if  in  this 
Christian  land  the  first  leaders  of  triumphant 
democracy  were  those  who,  however  much  they  may 
speak  about  the  Carpenter  of  Nazareth,  say  frankly 
that  they  are  not  Christians !  Lord  Shaftesbury 
has  left  it  on  record  how  surprised  and  chagrined 
he  was  to  find  that  in  much  of  his  philanthropic 
work  and  remedial  strivings  he  was  opposed  by 
the  bishops  and  helped  by  the  freethinkers.  Nor 
has  this  weird  experience  been  in  any  way 
singular  or  unique.  Yet  there  are  many  who 
profess  to  be  astonished  at  the  great  and  growing 
estrangement  between  organised  Christianity  and 
organised  labour.  As  was  inevitable,  there  have 
been  faults  on  both  sides,  and  there  are  still  faults 
on  both  sides.  Much,  for  example,  that  men  like 
Mr.  Blatchf ord  have  written  about  Christ  and  the 
Gospels  has  been  as  ill-informed  as  it  was 
offensive,  and  has  alienated  not  a  few  both 
among  workmen  and  others  who  were  vdth  him 
heart  and  soul  in  his  social  crusade.  No  true 
friend  of  labour  will  claim  that  either  its  leaders 
or  their  followers  in  the  great  upheaval  have 
always  been  either  wise  or  just ;  and  the  move- 
ment is  too  great  and  has  too  much  depending 
on  it  to  be  treated  as  if  it  were  above  criticism. 
But  the  chief  responsibility  for  such  errors  must 
rest  with  those  Christians  who  have  for  so  long 
had  power  alike  in  the  Church  and  the  State  and 
have  failed  to  use  it  in  either  sphere,  in  harmony 
with  the  spirit  of  the  Master  whom  they  professed 
to  follow.  Those  who  claim  to  be  superior 
and  have  had  so  many  advantages  ought  to 
prove  their  claim  by  being  wiser,  more  generous, 
and  more  responsive  to  every  lofty  appeal.     But 


32  THE  PROBLEM 

instead  of  that  they  have  usually  fought  to  the 
bitter  end  for  every  privilege  and  have  yielded 
only  to  compulsion,  and  in  such  a  fashion  as  to  get 
no  benefit  from  their  concessions  when  they  did 
yield.  As  long  as  they  could  they  were  only  too 
ready  to  act  as  if  the  subordination  of  the  great 
mass  of  men  to  be  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers 
of  water  for  the  privileged  few  were  an  ordi- 
nance of  God  and  approved  of  by  Him  who  in 
the  days  of  His  flesh  had  nowhere  to  lay  His 
head.  Most  of  them  have  only  discovered  the 
social  bearings  of  the  gospel,  and  that  it  has  a 
message  about  labour,  by  a  process  which  partakes 
largely  of  the  nature  of  a  death-bed  repentance. 

There  may  be  differences  of  opinion  as  to  the 
extent  of  the  present  estrangement  between 
organised  labour  and  organised  Christianity,  but 
as  to  the  fact  there  can  be  no  doubt.  There  are 
brilliant  exceptions  on  both  sides.  There  are 
labour  leaders  who  are  devoted  Christian 
workers ;  men  who  got  all  their  inspiration 
and  training  for  their  leadership  in  the  service 
of  the  Church  and  have  not  forgotten  the  fact. 
They  are  what  they  are  and  are  where  they  are 
because  of  what  Christ  has  done  for  them,  and 
because  they  have  consecrated  their  gifts  and 
graces  to  him.  Mr.  Arthur  Henderson,  when 
leader  of  the  Labour  Party  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  argued  that  "the  Churches  and  the 
Labour  Party  combined  might  make  life  more 
wholesome,  pure,  and  lovely."  There  are  also 
leaders  in  many  of  the  Churches  who  are  in 
intelligent  sympathy  with  the  modern  movement 
and  have  done  what  they  could  to  make  it  the 
vital  force  it  now  is.      But  meanwhile  on  both 


THE   PROBLEM  33 

sides  such  men  are  the  exception  rather  than  the 
rule.  Not  only  so,  but  there  are  ominous  signs 
that  the  alienation  is  not  only  growing  but  is 
assuming  new  forms.  In  the  labour  papers  and 
elsewhere  it  frequently  happens  that  what  is 
shown  is  no  longer  mere  indifference  to  religion 
and  the  Churches — the  agnosticism  of  the  prole- 
tariat— but  in  many  cases  doctrinaire  unbelief. 
Great  masses  of  the  people  not  only  absent 
themselves  from  public  worship,  as  has  always 
been  the  case,  but  are  openly  hostile  to  ministers 
of  religion  and  active  religious  propaganda. 
Certain  aspects  of  the  Higher  Criticism  movement 
are  being  popularised  in  the  crudest  fashion,  not 
only  with  disastrous  results,  but  with  deliberate 
animus.  A  little  knowledge  is  always  dangerous 
unless  it  is  preliminary  to  further  research ;  and 
when  it  is  knowledge  of  what  is  still  largely 
hypothetical  and  untested  it  is  doubly  dangerous. 
In  many  quarters  the  opposition  is  becoming 
doctrinal  and  theological  as  well  as  social  and 
economical.  Labour  is  setting  itself  to  avenge  its 
wrongs  on  the  Church  as  the  ally  of  the  capitalist 
by  becoming  the  ally  of  the  materialist  and 
infidel,  and  no  good  purpose  can  be  served 
by  either  side  ignoring  the  fact  and  what  it 
involves. 

This  estrangement  is  all  the  more  to  be  deplored 
that  it  is  in  Christianity  alone  that  the  reconcilia- 
tion can  be  found  of  the  two  great  social 
tendencies  of  the  age — individualism  and  col- 
lectivism— so  that  each  can  find  its  true  place  and 
appropriate  triumph  as  the  complement  of  the 
other.  In  the  gospel  there  is  neither  individualism 
nor  collectivism,  but  Christ  is  all  and  in  all ;   and  it 

Chrlttianity  a7td  Labour.  4 


I 


34  THE  PROBLEM 

is  in  Christianity  alone  that  capital  and  labour 
can  find  common  ground  so  that  nothing  need 
be  lost.  The  social  ideal  set  up  in  the  teaching 
of  Christ  and  His  apostles  can  never  be  attained 
by  the  destruction  or  emasculation  of  any  of  the 
elemental  forces  which  are  at  work,  but  only 
through  each  of  them  being  brought  into 
harmony  with  the  others  and  spending  itself  for 
the  common  good ;  and  this  can  only  be  done 
under  the  leadership  of  Christ  and  through  those 
who  are  filled  with  His  spirit  and  have  His  mind 
in  them.  From  one  viewpoint  the  gospel  is 
essentially  individualistic.  It  has  put  a  new, 
even  an  infinite  value  on  man  as  man.  The 
sublime  spectacle  of  the  Good  Shepherd  who  died 
for  the  sheep  going  out  after  the  one  sheep  that 
was  lost  has  made  every  soul  stand  out  by  itself 
as  of  supreme  worth  and  as  having  infinite 
possibilities.  It  was  this  wondrous  revelation 
which  won  step  by  step  for  the  labourer  the 
recognition  of  his  rights  as  made  at  first  in 
the  image  of  God  and  as  called  to  restoration, 
and  more  than  restoration,  through  the  Divine 
redemption.  As  one  well  entitled  to  speak  has 
put  it,  "The  improvement  of  the  condition  of 
all  the  unhappy  classes  of  which  we  have  been 
speaking — women,  infants,  slaves,  gladiators — 
can  be  traced  directly  back  to  a  single  funda- 
mental Christian  truth.  It  was  the  belief  in  the 
importance  of  the  individual  human  soul  in  the  eyes 
of  God  that  led  the  converted  Roman  to  realise  his 
responsibility  and  change  his  attitude  towards 
the  helpless  beings  whom  he  had  despised  before 
and  neglected."  From  another  viewpoint,  how- 
ever, the  gospel  is  essentially  coUectivist  and  has 


THE   PROBLEM  35 

given  a  new  place  and  meaning  to  the  conception 
of  the  brotherhood  of  man.  That  conception  is 
distinctively  Christian,  the  co-relative  of  the 
conception  of  the  fatherhood  of  God.  It  is  to 
the  Christian  apostle  to  the  Gentiles  we  owe 
the  great  word  that  no  man  can  either  live  or  die 
to  himself,  and  those  who  imagine  that  it  will 
hasten  the  coming  of  the  social  millennium  to 
ignore  Christ  are  strangely  ignorant  of  the  way 
in  which  progress  has  hitherto  been  attained. 
The  saying  of  Aristotle  that  the  solitary  man 
must  either  be  an  animal  or  a  god  gets  its  fulness 
of  application  in  the  gospel.  A  solitary  believer 
is  a  contradiction  in  terms.  Those  who  do  not 
love  the  brethren  whom  they  have  seen  stand 
convicted  of  not  being  lovers  of  God  whom  they 
have  not  seen.  Those  who  can  be  at  ease  and 
imagine  that  all  is  w^ell  because  they  themselves 
are  clothed  and  fed,  or  because  God  has  drawn 
near  to  them  with  His  saving  grace,  when  all 
around  there  are  multitudes  who  are  in  despair 
and  want  and  in  the  shackles  of  sin,  have 
not  truly  learned  Christ.  The  gospel  has  in  it 
the  secret  of  the  social  organism  in  which  no  one 
is  thought  of  merely  as  a  means  nor  any  one 
thought  of  merely  as  an  end,  but  in  which  every 
one  is  at  once  both  means  and  end.  It  anticipated 
the  social  doctrine  of  which  nineteenth-century 
philosophers  were  proudest  as  their  own  peculiar 
discovery,  although  they  were  not  always  loyal  to 
it.  It  anticipated  Hegel,  Comte,  and  Spencer  in  its 
insistence  on  the  solidarity  of  the  race.  There 
is  nothing  in  our  modern  life  which  is  noble  and 
inspiring  which  is  not  the  gift  of  Christ  rightly 
understood.     He  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto 


36  THE   PROBLEM 

but  to  minister,  and  it  is  just  in  proportion  as 
men  have  breathed  His  spirit  and  the  fulness  of 
the  meaning  of  His  gospel  has  been  unfolded  by 
the  evolution  of  the  Christian  centuries  that  there 
has  been  life  from  the  dead  for  the  toiling  masses, 
or  that  power  has  come  for  the  redemption  of 
the  slave,  the  liberation  of  the  serf,  the  lifting 
up  of  the  despairing,  underpaid,  and  overdriven 
working  man. 

All  through  the  discussion  of  this  labour  prob- 
lem it  must  never  be  forgotten  that  the  social 
question  is  almost  entirely  a  question  of  motive 
power  or  force,  and  that  Christianity  alone  has 
the  necessary  dynamic.  It  differs  from  every 
other  system  in  this  all-important  respect,  that 
it  has  redemptive  power  in  it  to  set  the  captive 
free  and  to  save  the  souls  of  men.  Apart  from 
Christ  the  wail  of  the  shackled  all  through  the 
ages  has  been,  "  the  good  that  I  would  I  do  not, 
and  the  evil  that  I  would  not  that  I  do."  Apart 
from  Him  the  lament  of  the  reformer  in  all  genera- 
tions and  every  land  has  been  "  this  people's  heart 
is  waxed  gross,  and  their  ears  are  dull  of  hearing, 
and  their  eyes  they  have  closed."  The  gospel  is 
infinitely  more  than  a  philosophy  or  a  system  of 
ethics.  It  is  more  than  a  plan  of  salvation  or  a 
theory  of  redemption.  It  is  the  engrafted  word 
of  God  which  can  save  the  soul.  It  stands  or  falls 
by  the  power  which  it  brings ;  the  power  to  turn 
every  command  into  a  promise ;  the  power  to  save 
to  the  uttermost  and  make  the  weakest  strong 
and  the  worst  the  best.  It  is  not  one  religion 
among  many.  It  is  a  unique  revelation.  It  is 
pre-eminent  or  it  is  nothing.  Man  was  made  for 
eternity  as  well  as  for  time ;  for  the  spiritual  as 


THE  PROBLEM  37 

well  as  for  the  temporal ;  and  the  gospel  alone 
can  fathom  his  needs  and  yearnings  and  minister 
fully  to  them.  Some  one  has  remarked  that  "  the 
devotions  of  Empire  have  all  something  stagey 
about  them  unless  they  are  suffused  by  the 
principles  of  the  kingdom  of  God,"  and  to  this 
it  may  be  added  that  the  great  outstanding  claim 
of  the  kingdom — a  claim  which  has  been  tested 
and  verified  again  and  again — is  that  it  alone  has 
the  inherent  energy  which  can  secure  reform. 
Its  message  is  no  mere  hypostatised  copy-book 
headline,  but  a  living  word  of  power.  It  does 
not  concern  itself  with  trite  proverbs  or  mere 
reminders  of  duty,  but  with  the  creation  of  an 
actual  relationship  between  regenerated  men  and 
women  and  the  living  God. 

Were  any  further  apology  needed  for  trying 
along  these  lines  to  trace  the  influence  of  the 
gospel  in  the  process  by  which  the  labourer  has 
so  far  come  to  his  own,  it  would  be  found  in  the 
manifest  need  there  is  for  the  light  of  Christian 
truth  being  thrown  on  both  sides  in  the  great 
strife.  On  the  one  hand,  it  is  undeniable  that 
even  where  the  division  of  the  profits  of  the 
common  adventure  is  fairest,  labour  is  not  yet 
receiving  it  due  reward  or  its  rightful  place  in 
the  partnership.  The  labourer  has  often  to  live 
in  a  mere  hovel  and  face  the  direst  want,  while 
his  employer  lives  in  a  castle  and  in  sybarite 
self-indulgence ;  and  to  excuse  such  injustice  to 
the  toiling  partner  in  the  business  by  reflec- 
tions on  the  way  in  which  his  earnings  are 
misspent,  or  to  allege  that  the  labourer  is  often 
as  happy  as  the  capitalist,  is  altogether  beside  the 
mark.     That  which  ought  to  be  a  perfect  co-opera- 


38  THE  PROBLEM 

tion  has  come  to  be  a  sort  of  civil  war ;  and  this 
is  just  the  war  where  victory  is  the  next  worst 
thing  to  defeat ;  and  where  the  apparent  victory 
of  one  side  is  often  real  defeat  for  both,  and  for  the 
whole  nation  besides.  Now  if  ever,  if  Christianity 
has  a  message  it  ought  to  be  fearlessly  proclaimed. 
If  Christians  have  nothing  to  say  as  to  the  mind 
of  Christ  at  this  juncture,  when  nearly  everything 
is  in  the  melting-pot,  they  must  be  silent  for  ever- 
more. On  the  other  hand,  in  only  too  many  cases, 
the  labourer  is  coming  lamentably  short  of  the 
ideal  he  should  have  before  him,  and  is  robbing 
himself  of  that  self-respect  and  that  honest  pride 
in  his  work  which  are  so  much  more  valuable  than 
either  shorter  hours  or  higher  wages.  The  dignity 
of  idleness  is  only  too  often  set  over  against  the 
dignity  of  labour,  and  many  are  strenuous  in  their 
endeavours  to  live  down  to  their  standard.  Not 
many  years  ago  it  was  announced  that  a  first-class 
battleship  had  been  found  to  leak  badly,  and  that 
examination  of  her  double  bottom  had  shown  that 
rivet-holes  had  been  filled  with  putty  and  red-lead 
instead  of  bolts.  It  was  added  that  the  riveting 
had  been  done  by  piecework.  Between  w^hat  has 
been  called  the  "  ca-canny  "  policy  and  the  ideal 
of  the  gospel,  that  a  man's  work  is  his  divine 
calling,  his  divine  vocation,  there  is  a  great  gulf 
fixed.  One  would  fain  hope  that  scamping  and 
cheating  are  as  rare  as  they  are  lamentable  and 
abominable,  but  some  who  work  in  the  great 
public  works  affirm  that  the  case  is  far  otherwise, 
and  that  not  only  there  but  in  smaller  works  the 
extent  to  which  dishonesty  and  petty  pilfering  pre- 
vail can  be  credited  only  by  those  who  have  seen 
it  for  themselves.     It  may  be  that  some  look  on 


THE  PROBLEM  39 

these  things  as  the  guerilla  department  in  the  great 
civil  war  between  capital  and  labour  which  never 
ceases ;  but  everything  is  not  fair  in  war  any  more 
than  in  love ;  and  this  kind  of  thing  has  nothing 
in  common  with  the  open  stand-up  fight  of  the 
lock-out  or  the  strike,  barbarous  as  these  are.  It 
belongs  to  the  sphere  of  operation  which  all  honest 
men  despise — the  sphere  of  poisoned  springs  and 
dum-dum  bullets.  It  has  its  parallel  only  in  the 
callousness  with  which  workmen  are  sometimes 
treated  by  those  in^  authority  when  trade  is  bad, 
and  the  miserable  spirit  which  some  unworthy 
representatives  of  capital  seldom  fail  to  display 
to  their  opponents  when  they  have  the  oppor- 
tunity. They  sometimes  make  it  impossible  for 
certain  workmen  to  get  work  anywhere,  and  end 
in  driving  them  out  of  the  land;  but  it  is  part  of 
the  seriousness  of  the  situation  that  such  questions 
as  these  are  seldom  looked  on  as  part  of  the  labour 
problem  at  all.  Yet  they  are  truly  an  integral  part 
of  it,  and  it  is  not  possible  to  deal  with  the  rela- 
tions between  Christianity  and  labour  without 
dealing  with  them  ;  nor  can  the  gospel  manifest 
its  power  unless  they  are  dealt  with.  Duties  and 
rights  go  together  and  imply  each  other  alike  for 
capitalists  and  labourers.  Labour  can  never  come 
to  its  own  unless,  along  with  righteous  demands  for 
a  fuller  share  of  the  fruits  of  its  co-operation  with 
capital,  it  also  wages  incessant  warfare  against 
everything  which  prevents  the  workmen  from 
looking  the  whole  world  in  the  face  not  only  as 
efficient  but  as  honest  and  true.  Nor  can  capital 
claim  the  recognition  of  its  undoubted  rights  unless 
on  its  part  it  recognises  that  the  manhood  and 
self-respect   of    the    labourer   must    be    honoured 


40  THE   PROBLEM 

all  through,  and  unless  everything  is  clean  and 
straightforward,  and  all  tyranny  and  class  preju- 
dice are  strenuously  opposed.  Both  sides  must 
play  the  game,  and  have  nothing  to  do  with 
explosive  bullets  or  slaying  the  wounded.  There 
is  nothing  worth  fighting  for  otherwise,  nor  any- 
thing worth  winning.  Neither  side  can  invoke 
the  help  of  the  Power  in  the  universe  which  makes 
for  righteousness  unless  it  is  seeking  to  do  the 
right,  and  is  prepared  to  be  loyal  to  whatever  is 
just  and  true ;  and  when  the  world-forces  meet 
in  their  Armageddon  no  other  power  will  be  of 
any  avail. 

It  is  along  these  lines  and  in  this  spirit  that  I 
propose  to  consider  the  history  of  labour  through- 
out the  Christian  centuries  and  among  the  Christian 
peoples.  So  far  as  the  story  can  be  summarised  it 
tells  how  the  labourer  who  was  everywhere  a 
slave  to  begin  with  gradually  became  a  serf  under 
the  new  forces  which  Christ  set  agoing  among  the 
nations ;  how  with  many  ups  and  downs  in  the  pro- 
cess, and  many  ebbs  in  the  flowing  tide,  he  gradually 
ceased  in  the  same  way  to  be  a  serf  and  become 
a  free  servant;  and  then  how  in  modern  times 
he  has  gradually  attained  his  present  position,  so 
full  of  promise  and  potency,  when  he  has  become  a 
voter  and  a  citizen,  and  his  industrial  position  can 
best  be  described  by  the  naturalised  word  "em- 
ployee," the  man  who  calls  no  other  man  master. 
The  periods  during  which  these  transitions  took 
place  may  be  taken  as  corresponding  generally  to 
those  in  Church  history  which  are  described  as  the 
Early  Church,  the  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
the  Post-Reformation  Church,  and  the  Church  of 
To-day.     The  movement  to  be  traced  might  also 


THE  PROBLEM  41 

be  described  as  a  progress  in  three  stages ;  first, 
slavery,  in  which  the  labourer  was  the  property  of 
the  capitalist ;  secondly,  feudalism,  in  which  the 
capitalist  and  landlord  had  a  lien  on  the  labourer 
who  was  attached  to  the  land  ;  and  thirdly,  in- 
dividualism, in  which  the  labourer  as  servant  and 
employee  is  free  to  come  and  go  as  he  pleases,  and 
in  which  competition  is  expected  to  secure  the  due 
distribution  of  wealth.  A  fourth  stage  might  be 
added  to  describe  our  own  time  in  which  one  check 
after  another  is  being  devised  to  limit  unfettered 
or  unfair  competition,  and  mitigate  some  of  its 
baneful  results.  What  we  are  to  endeavour  to 
find  out  is  whether  there  is  an  even  deeper  corre- 
spondence between  these  industrial  epochs  and  the 
parallel  eras  in  Church  history  than  one  of  time  ; 
and  how  far  the  improvement  in  the  labourer's 
position  which  these  eras  saw  was  due  to  growth 
in  the  fulness  of  the  Christian  revelation,  a  pro- 
founder  perception  of  what  the  gospel  meant,  and 
a  more  thoroughgoing  obedience  to  Christ  as 
supreme.  If  it  be  found  that  directly  and  in- 
directly Christ  has  been  Lord  and  Leader  all 
through  along  the  upward  pathway  we  ought 
also  to  be  able  to  predict  in  some  degree  how 
the  forces  of  amelioration  which  have  done  so 
much  already  may  be  relied  on  to  carry  the  good 
work  to  perfection,  as  well  as  how  these  forces 
can  best  be  evoked  and  guided.  As  it  was  in  the 
days  of  His  flesh,  Christ  has  not  been  able  as  yet 
to  do  as  many  mighty  works  as  He  yearned  to  do 
because  of  the  unbelief  of  His  own  and  of  those 
whom  He  came  to  help  and  deliver.  But  as  it  also 
was  then,  so  it  has  been  all  through  the  ages. 
He  has  been  laying  His  blessed  hands  on  a  few  sick 


42  THE  PROBLEM 

folks  and  healing  them ;  and  this  healing  has  been 
the  measure  of  the  progress  of  the  race.  If  only 
men's  eyes  were  turned  to  Him  and  they  saw 
as  they  ought  that  He  alone  can  solve  every 
problem  and  right  every  wrong,  His  mighty  works 
so  long  deferred  would  ere  long  make  all  things 
new  the  wide  world  over. 

In  many  respects  the  movement  by  which  the 
slave  has  become  the  citizen  and  employee  has 
been  of  the  kind  which  is  known  as  progress  by 
antagonism.  It  is  as  far  as  possible  from  one 
which  could  be  represented  by  a  straight  line. 
Moral  movements  can  seldom  be  represented  by 
such  a  simple  diagram.  It  would  be  more  accurate 
to  portray  it  as  a  spiral  ascent ;  and  in  our  days  it 
appears  to  be  at  the  point  where  a  new  circle  is 
being  completed  preliminary  to  further  ascent. 
First  of  all  it  was  a  movement  from  status  to 
contract — that  is,  from  a  condition  of  affairs  where 
the  labourer  had  his  circumstances  and  lot  deter- 
mined for  him  to  one  where  he  had  an  increasing 
power  of  choice  as  to  how  and  where  he  was  to  do 
his  work.  But  latterly,  and  very  specially  in  our 
time,  the  movement  has  in  some  important  re- 
spects been  back  again  from  contract  to  status. 
It  has  even  been  ineptly  described  by  Herbert 
Spencer  and  others  as  a  return  to  a  new  slavery. 
The  mere  empty  freedom  which  included  the  right 
to  starve  is  now  at  a  discount,  and  the  freedom 
which  is  most  prized  is  the  freedom  to  do  right 
and  to  live  one's  true  life.  The  new  status,  how- 
ever, although  it  is  infinitely  richer  and  fuller 
than  the  old,  because  of  the  circles  which  have 
been  described  throughout  the  centuries,  is  status 
all  the  same. 


THE  PROBLEM  43 

Yet  another  way  of  describing  this  aspect  of 
the  evolution  of  labour  in  history  is  to  say  that 
it  has  been  a  movement  from  collectivism  to 
individualism  and  then  back  again  to  collectivism. 
But  of  course  the  new  collectivism  is  very  different 
from  the  old.  This  movement  of  the  labourer 
upwards  to  his  own  has  also  been  described  as 
being  from  anonymity  to  anonymity ;  from  the 
anonymity  of  the  slave — that  is,  when  he  was  a  mere 
chattel,  a  thing  without  a  name — to  the  anonymity 
of  the  Trade  Union  or  the  employers'  syndicate, 
when  he  is  once  again  lost  in  the  crowd.*  But  all 
through  the  circle  which  has  been  described, 
however  it  may  be  thought  of,  has  been  as  far 
as  possible  from  being  a  vicious  circle.  It  has 
been  fruitful  all  the  way,  even  when  it  was  a 
pathway  of  agony  and  tears.  The  moral  and 
spiritual  universe,  just  like  the  physical  universe, 
is  a  sphere,  and  in  the  social  life,  as  in  true  logic, 
there  are  blessed  circles  which  are  full  of  promise 
and  performance  alike.  Yet  on  the  other  hand 
the  saying  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  in  human 
development  "  there  are  no  true  cycles."  It  would 
be  truer  to  say  that  history  never  repeats  itself 
than  to  say  the  reverse.  "  The  Greco-Roman  world 
had  only  distant  analogies  with  the  feudal  Catholic 
world ;  just  as  it  in  turn  had  only  distant  analogies 

*  Cf.  footnote  on  page  444  of  "Christian  Ethics,"  by 
Newman  Smyth  :  "Mr.  Mackenzie  has  rightly  singled  out 
'  the  impersonality  of  relations  in  an  industrial  community ' 
as  one  of  the  '  conditions  of  difficulty '  in  our  social  prob- 
lem. ('An  Introduction  to  Social  Philosophy,'  p.  99.) 
Similarly  Paulsen  characterises  this  ominous  feature  of 
modern  life  by  the  phrase  '  its  fearful  anonymousness  ' 
(•System  der  Ethik,'  s.  687)." 


44  THE  PROBLEM 

with  the  revolutionary  world.  The  great  phases 
of  human  civilisation  are  contrasted  rather  than 
compared ;  they  differ  as  infancy,  childhood,  and 
senility  differ  in  the  individual."  To  raise  any  cry 
about  the  modern  movement  being  in  the  direction 
of  a  new  slavery  is  peculiarly  futile,  even  when 
the  employer  is  seen  to  be  in  the  grip  of  some 
great  combine,  or  the  workman  is  suppressed  by  a 
labour  congress.  The  new  status  will  be  vastly 
richer  than  the  old,  inasmuch  as  it  will  have 
gathered  into  it  the  lessons  of  the  ages ;  and  in  its 
turn  it  will  become  the  starting-point  for  another 
movement  which  will  put  fresh  emphasis  on  the 
rights  of  the  individual  from  the  standpoint  of  a 
new  conception  of  the  rights  of  that  social  unity 
for  which  and  in  which  the  individual  lives  and 
moves  and  has  his  being.  And,  all  through,  the 
question  of  duties  will  be  even  more  emphasised  in 
the  new  era  than  that  of  rights.  But  solvitur 
ambulando,  and  we  shall  now  proceed  to  look  at 
the  labourer  as  a  slave  and  see  how  he  became  a 
serf  and  thus  passed  the  first  great  milestone  on 
the  journey  upwards  and  onwards. 


THE  LABOURER  AS   A  SLAVE 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   LABOURER  AS   A  SLAVE 

WHEREVER  the  gospel  went  it  found  the 
labourer  a  slave,  and  equally  wherever  it 
went  it  entered  into  conflict  with  the  evil  system. 
There  may  be  room  for  discussion  as  to  whether 
the  conflict  was  always  carried  on  in  the  best 
way  ;  there  can  be  none  as  to  the  fact  that  the 
whole  spirit  and  purpose  of  Christianity  are  in 
absolute  opposition  to  slavery  in  every  manifesta- 
tion of  it,  and  that  its  entire  influence  was  exerted 
against  it  from  the  first.  It  may  be  that  it 
worked  slowly,  but  it  worked  surely,  and,  as  the 
record  shows,  on  the  whole,  not  unsuccessfully. 

It  is  not  necessary  here  or  now  to  renew  the 
horrors,  or  to  dilate  on  the  nameless  atrocities  of 
the  old-world  bondage  which  meant  practically 
that  all  the  working  classes  were  slaves,  and  that 
the  social  order  was  a  system  of  government  by 
intimidation.  It  is  probable,  indeed,  that  at  the 
beginning  of  our  era  society  in  the  Roman  Empire 
was  not  quite  so  rotten  as  would  appear  from  the 
pictures  of  contemporary  satirists  and  moralists. 
The  very  vigour  of  these  denunciations  and 
strictures  shows  that  there  were  some  to  whom 
the  evils  which  abounded  were  hateful.  Such 
well-known  stories  as  that  of  Flaminius,  who  had 

47 


48  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE 

a  slave  killed  in  order  that  a  young  friend  who 
had  never  seen  a  man  die  might  be  delivered 
from  such  ignorance ;  or  that  of  PoUio,  who  threw 
slaves  into  his  fish-ponds  that  his  lampreys  might 
feed  on  human  flesh  as  that  on  which  they  throve 
best,  must  be  regarded  as  exceptional.  Startling 
instances  of  cruelty  to  children  might  be  gathered 
from  British  newspapers  in  our  own  era  which  it 
would  be  very  unfair  to  use  as  if  they  represented 
the  general  state  of  affairs  in  our  homes.  All 
the  same,  so  far  as  slavery  was  concerned  the 
state  of  affairs  was  unspeakably  terrible ;  vastly 
more  so  than  negro  slavery  at  its  worst.*  The 
one  hope  the  slave  had  of  humane  treatment  was 
his  economic  value,  and  even  that  was  but  a 
frail  defence  when  lust  and  passion  were  aroused. 
There  were  no  societies  for  the  prevention  of 
cruelty  to  animals  or  children  in  the  pre- 
Christian  ages ;  and  no  one  would  now  be 
allowed  to  treat  a  dog  as  a  slave  might  then  be 
treated  without  challenge.  A  slave,  too,  could 
suffer  many  a  wrong  which  would  have  no  evil 
meaning  for  a  dog.  For  the  rest,  from  the  view- 
point of  the  history  of  labour  it  is  sufficient  to 
lay  emphasis  on  the  fact  that  from  the  economic 
standpoint  slavery  anywhere  is  absolutely  con- 
demned.     As    a    modern  writer  t   has    it,   slaves 

*  Cicero  throws  a  lurid  light  on  Roman  slavery  when  in 
speaking  of  the  Praetor  Domitian,  who  had  crucified  a  slave 
for  having  been  too  eager  in  killing  a  wild  boar  at  the  hunt, 
he  contents  himself  with  saying,  ' '  that  will  perhaps  appear 
harsh  "  ;  and  when  he  apologises  for  being  sorry  when  a 
slave  died. 

t  W.  R.  Paterson,  "The  Nemesis  of  Nations,"  p.  326. 
A  most  acute  and  helpful  study. 


THE   LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE  49 

were  at  once  the  wealth  of  nations  and  their 
Nemesis.  Wherever  slavery  has  prevailed  its 
baneful  fruits  have  been  the  same.  It  was  demo- 
ralising even  to  the  best  and  most  kindly  dis- 
posed. It  made  beasts  of  the  naturally  licentious 
and  cruel.  It  corrupted  the  family  life.*  It  has 
turned  fruitful  lands  into  deserts,  and  has  rendered 
a  true  and  pure  home-life  impossible,  alike  for  the 
slave-ow^ner  and  his  family  and  for  their  hapless 
and  helpless  chattels.  It  not  only  leads  to  eco- 
nomic sterility,  but  destroys  the  very  foundations 
of  good  government  and  the  very  possibility  of 
enduring  law  and  order.  Where  the  working 
classes  are  slaves  there  can  be  no  genuine  social 
organism  as  w^e  understand  that  term,  and  hence 
it  was  that  when  Christ  came  in  the  fulness  of 
time  the  whole  civilised  w^orld  was  rapidly  drift- 
ing into  anarchy.  As  for  free  labour  which  is 
so  essential  to  the  well-being  of  the  common- 
wealth, slavery  began  by  making  it  despicable 
and  ended  by  making  it  impossible.  Some 
students  have  discovered  certain  compensations, 
but  these  are  very  visionary.  It  is  said,  for 
example,  that  slaves  were  the  machinery  of  the 
ancient  world,  and  that  such  structures  as  the 
pyramids  of  Egypt  or  the  hanging  gardens  of 
Babylon  could  not  have  been  built  without  them. 
But  even  if  that  were  the  case,  the  price  paid  for 
these  colossal  achievements  was  far  too  great ; 
and  in  the  end  of  the  day  no  section  of  the  com- 
munity can  aiford  to  treat  any  other  section  as 
mere  machinery,  either  in  ancient  or  modern 
times. 

*  Cf.    Dr.    Vincent,     "  Commentajy    on    Philippians   and 
Philemon,"  p.   164. 

Chrintianity  and  Labour.  5 


50  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE 

Nor  was  it  done  with  impunity  in  the  old  world. 
The  machinery  fearfully  avenged  its  degradation. 
It  has  been  claimed  further  by  Comte  *  that  con- 
sidered as  a  military  institution,  slavery  was 
profoundly  beneficial  both  to  master  and  slave. 
He  argues  that  the  military  activity  which  was 
so  indispensable  for  the  protection  of  the  industry 
of  primitive  society  could  not  have  been  developed 
otherwise.  It  was  necessary  that  w^hen  the 
warrior  went  abroad  the  slave  should  work  at 
home.  But  the  facts  are  that  both  in  Babylon 
and  Greece  the  slaves  were  compelled  to  be 
soldiers,  and  that  war  added  greatly  to  their 
numbers  since  every  prisoner  became  a  slave. 
In  the  later  days  of  the  Empire  of  Rome  slave 
merchants  accompanied  the  armies,  and  the  sale 
of  prisoners  into  slavery  was  superintended  by 
officers  of  State.  The  gods  are  just  and  the 
Pow^er  which  is  at  work  in  the  universe  makes 
for  righteousness.  Such  a  hideous  wrong  to 
humanity  as  is  involved  in  slavery  could  not  but 
avenge  itself ;  and  when  at  the  crisis  of  the 
world's  need  the  new  light  of  Christ  broke,  it  was 
to  nations  weary  and  sated  with  lust  that  the 
gospel  was  preached  which  was  to  set  new 
regenerating  forces  in  operation  and  usher  in  a 
new  era  of  liberation  and  reform.  Slavery  had 
ruined  both  the  industry  and  the  home-life  of  the 
people.!  "The  Athenians  became  the  parasites 
of  their  slaves."  In  Rome  both  under  the  Re- 
public and  the   Empire   the  middle   classes   were 

*  See  "The  Nemesis  of  Nations,"  pp.  104-105. 
i  See  Wallon,  "  Histoire  de  I'Esclavage  dans  1' Antiquity  "  ; 
also  Paterson,  "The  Nemesis  of  Nations." 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE  51 

annihilated.  "The  bourgeois  became  a  beggar." 
The  extent  to  which  the  vile  system  prevailed  is 
almost  incredible  now,  but  it  must  be  insisted  on 
if  its  full  bearings  on  the  labour  problem  are  to 
be  understood.  It  is  not  possible  to  tell  exactly 
how  the  numbers  stood  at  different  times,  but  at 
a  time  when  the  population  of  Athens  was  two 
hundred  thousand,  only  twenty-one  thousand 
were  freemen.  In  Attica,  the  home  of  culture  and 
the  home  of  freedom  so  far  as  freedom  had  then 
been  attained,  there  were  a  hundred  in  slavery 
for  every  twenty-seven  who  w^ere  free,  or  nearly 
four  to  one.  The  historian  Mommsen  calculated 
that  three-fifths  of  the  population  of  Rome  were 
slaves ;  while  equally  competent  authorities  have 
computed  that  in  the  Empire  during  the  first 
century  of  the  Christian  era  there  cannot  have 
been  fewer  than  sixty  millions  of  these  sad 
creatures,  without  family,  without  religion,  and 
without  possessions.  Once  when  it  was  proposed 
in  the  Senate  that  slaves  should  wear  some  dis- 
tinctive dress  it  was  objected  that  if  that  were 
done  the  servile  classes  would  become  aware  of 
their  numbers  and  strength,  and  the  proposal  was 
rejected. 

In  the  old  pagan  world,  then,  the  working  man 
was  a  slave,  and  bad  as  things  were  in  Greece  and 
Rome,  they  were  even  worse  under  the  fouler  and 
more  degraded  cults  of  the  further  south  and 
further  east.  The  truth  is  that  slavery  was  es- 
sential to  paganism,  and  grew  out  of  it.  It  was 
the  necessary  development  of  the  principle  that 
might  is  right;  and  while  at  first  that  principle 
was  applied  only  as  against  enemies,  it  soon  came 
to   be   applied   as   against   all   outsiders.     As   the 


52  THE  LABOURER  AS   A  SLAVE 

demand  for  slaves  increased  through  free  labour 
becoming  less  possible,  and  free  and  forced  labour 
alike  becoming  less  fruitful,  war  often  came  to 
mean  raiding  for  slaves.  Nor  was  it  the  least  of 
the  horrors  of  ancient  slavery  that  many  of  the 
men  slaves  had  once  been  free  like  their  captors, 
and  were  as  well  educated  and  as  fit  to  be  free  ;  and 
that  many  of  the  women  slaves  were  as  fair  and 
cultured  as  their  mistresses.  Of,  necessity,  too, 
the  application  of  the  vicious  principle  could  not 
stop  short  with  outsiders.  It  was  inevitable  that 
sooner  or  later  it  should  be  turned  against  the 
weak  and  dependent  members  of  the  community, 
and  that  it  should  end  in  finding  fresh  victims 
even  in  the  family  circle.  When  once  such  a  gan- 
grene had  taken  hold  it  could  not  but  spread,  and  it 
blighted  everything  it  touched.  And  the  theories 
of  that  old  world  showed  that  slavery  is  essential  to 
paganism,  just  as  its  practices  did.  Even  when 
they  made  it  manifest  that  it  raised  serious 
problems  for  them,  the  wisest  of  the  Greeks  were 
unable  to  conceive  of  a  State  which  did  not  rest  on 
slavery  as  its  industrial  basis.  Plato,  the  wisest  and 
greatest  thinker  of  ancient  times,  of  whom  it  has 
been  justly  said  that  all  philosophy  since  is  just 
Plato  rightly  understood,  not  only  accepted  the 
degradation  of  the  slave  as  a  social  necessity,  but 
actually  confused  the  artisan  and  the  slave  in  his 
Republic.  So  long  as  their  guardians  who  were  to 
control  and  direct  them  were  properly  selected  and 
trained,  the  people — the  slave  community,  that  is — 
were  to  be  left  to  their  own  devices  even  in  the  ideal 
State.  As  for  Aristotle,  the  father  of  all  science, 
he  went  still  further,  and  affirmed  that  slavery  is 
an  ordinance  of  nature  which  has  created  some  to 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE  53 

command  and  others  to  obey,  a  theory  of  society 
which  in  practice  is  as  fatal  for  the  slave-owner  as 
it  is  for  the  slave.  He  held  that  there  are  occupa- 
tions, such  as  those  which  demand  special  physical 
energy,  in  which  no  freeman  could  engage  without 
degradation ;  and  in  harmony  with  this  we  find 
that  a  horror  of  mechanical  work  was  an  out- 
standing trait  of  the  later  Greeks  and  Romans. 
Spartan  law  specifically  forbade  freemen  to 
engage  in  such  work,  while  Cicero  has  it :  "  We 
admire  a  rich  purple  dye,  but  we  despise  the  dyer 
as  a  vile  artisan."  And  if  the  retort  be  made  that 
there  are  indications  that  such  a  theory  is  not 
without  support  in  certain  quarters  in  our  own 
day,  that  just  means  that  there  are  many  pagan 
elements  in  our  modern  life  and  thought,  and  that 
paganism  is  still  true  to  itself.  The  vanquished 
naturalism  of  the  heathen  world  ever  seeks  to 
avenge  itself  on  Christianity,  and  does  so  in  the 
social  and  economic  sphere  as  well  as  in  the 
sphere  of  worship  and  doctrine ;  but  whatever 
its  triumphs,  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  what  the 
gospel  has  to  say  about  the  Aristotelian  theory  of 
labour  and  the  labourer.  Even  the  Roman  jurists 
were  frank  in  their  opposition  to  the  doctrine  that 
slavery  is  an  ordinance  of  nature.  According  to 
them,  it  was  founded  on  force  and  contrary  to  the 
laws  of  nature,  which  view  all  men  as  free.  Yet, 
whether  founded  on  force  or  on  so-called  natural 
law,  slavery  was  an  integral  part  of  their  theory  of 
the  universe,  as  essential  to  their  entire  scheme  of 
government  and  social  life  as  it  was  to  the  scheme 
of  Aristotle. 

The   gospel,  then,  found  slavery  everywhere  in 
possession  when  it  began    its    beneficent    career 


54  THE   LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE 

among  men ;  and  found  it  everywhere  blighting 
the  home,  the  social  order,  and  the  State.  Very 
specially,  for  our  purpose,  must  the  fact  be  em- 
phasised that  it  found  it  exerting  the  most 
disastrous  influence  on  free  labour  and  on  the 
very  conception  of  what  labour  is.  On  these  two 
essential  points  it  joined  issue  with  the  world- 
forces  from  the  first.  In  so  acting  it  assailed 
what  was  then,  as  it  still  is,  the  strategic  point. 
From  the  moral  and  economic  standpoints  alike 
everything  stands  or  falls  by  the  place  which  is 
given  in  life  and  doctrine  to  free  labour.  It  was, 
of  course,  inevitable  that  slavery  should  put  free 
labour  under  the  ban.  For  long  agriculture 
occupied  an  exceptional  position,  but  even  it  had 
to  succumb,  until  the  very  fields  were  tilled  by 
chained  gangs  of  slaves.  Shepherds  alone  seem  to 
have  remained  comparatively  free,  probably  be- 
cause of  their  mobility.  But  the  rule  which  had 
hardly  an  exception,  was  that  to  work  with  one's 
hands  was  a  thing  for  slaves,  and  for  them  alone. 
All  sorts  of  tradesmen — carpenters,  smiths,  shoe- 
makers, tailors,  and  the  like — were  kept  by  slave- 
owners in  later  times,  not  only  for  their  own  use, 
but  that  they  might  be  hired  out  for  the  profit  of 
their  masters.  Entire  factories  and  workshops 
came  to  be  supplied  with  men  in  this  way,  and  the 
free  labourers  who  had  to  work  alongside  of  these 
skilled  and  unskilled  slaves  were  not  only  de- 
graded thereby,  but  ultimately  found  it  impossible 
to  compete  with  them  in  the  labour  market.  The 
result  was  that  they  had  to  make  their  choice 
between  becoming  slaves  themselves,  swelling  the 
ranks  of  the  clientele  of  some  rich  man  on  a  footing 
not  much  better  than  that  of  slaves,  or  of  being 


THE   LABOURER   AS   A   SLAVE  55 

paupers  who  were  fed  and  clothed  at  the  public 
expense,  to  their  own  great  detriment  and 
humiliation,  and  a  constant  danger  and  menace  to 
the  State.  Slavery  is  far  more  than  twice  cursed. 
It  blights  everything  it  touches  even  afar  off.  It 
ruins  every  one  who  comes  within  its  sweep, 
as  if  it  were  a  veritable  upas-tree.  Even  where 
work  was  done  by  free  labour  among  the 
civilised  nations  to  whom  the  gospel  came, 
it  was  usually  done  not  by  freemen  but  by 
f reedmen ;  that  is,  by  those  who  had  formerly 
been  slaves,  and  were  still  for  the  most  part 
dependents,  and,  worst  of  all,  had  still  the  slave 
spirit,  which  is  one  of  the  deadliest  of  the  curses 
which  slavery  brings.  The  only  analogy  to  this 
class  in  modern  times,  from  the  economic  and 
social  standpoint,  is  to  be  found  in  the  "  mean 
whites,"  "the  poor  white  trash"  of  the  slave 
States  in  the  American  Union.  This  degradation 
and  destruction  of  free  labour  is  one  of  the  in- 
evitable evil  fruits  of  slavery  which  can  never  be 
overlooked  in  any  discussion  of  the  history  of 
labour.  The  glory  of  the  gospel  is  that  it  makes 
men  fit  to  be  free  ;  the  curse  of  slavery  is  that  it 
makes  it  impossible  for  men  to  be  free.  There  can 
be  no  true  social  organism  without  free  labour, 
and  free  labour  soon  dies  out  when  slavery  enters 
in.  It  becomes  a  stigma  and  a  disgrace  to  be  a 
labourer. 

Among  the  peoples  of  antiquity  there  was, 
however,  one  which  differed  from  all  the  rest  alike 
in  its  conception  of  slavery  and  free  labour  and  in 
its  attitude  to  them ;  and  this  exception  is  not  only 
the  exception  which  proves  the  rule,  it  is  as  signifi- 
cant as  the  rule.     As  the  author  of  "  The  Nemesis 


56  THE   LABOURER  AS   A  SLAVE 

of  Nations"*  puts  it,  "  Nothing  in  ancient  history  is 
more  remarkable  than  the  mild  slave  laws  of  the 
Hebrews.  They  alone  had  a  genuine  conception  of 
human  liberty.  'Thou  shalt  not  deliver  unto  his 
master  the  servant  which  is  escaped  from  his 
master  unto  thee  ;  he  shall  dwell  with  thee  ;  even 
among  you  in  that  place  which  he  shall  choose  in 
one  of  thy  gates  ;  where  it  liketh  him  best ;  thou 
shalt  not  oppress  him.'  This  tremor  of  kindness 
ran  through  Canaan  at  the  very  moment  when 
Babylon  was  heaping  oppression  on  her  slaves.  In 
Israel  legislation  was  undertaken  on  behalf  of  the 
slaves  ;  in  Babylon  only  on  behalf  of  the  masters. 
In  Babylon  the  slave  was  an  animal  and  a  chattel. 
In  Israel  he  was  a  person."  Historians  have  men- 
tioned it  as  a  remarkable  fact  that  the  Jews  were 
rarely  slaves  because  their  religion  rendered  them 
almost  useless  to  heathen  masters.  But  it  may 
also  have  been  due  to  the  fact  that  they  themselves 
so  seldom  kept  slaves  after  the  ordinary  pagan 
fashion.  It  is  not  to  be  disputed  that  slavery  ex- 
isted among  the  Jews  as  it  did  among  all  the  nations 
of  antiquity,  but  it  was  an  altogether  different 
institution  among  them  from  what  it  was  in  Greece 
or  Rome,  to  say  nothing  of  Egypt  or  Babylon.  The 
atmosphere  was  not  the  same,  and  in  later  times 
the  sect  of  the  Essenes  f  were  not  alone  among 
the  chosen  people  in  their  opposition  to  slavery  as 
contrary  to  the  dignity  of  man  ;  a  great  divine  con- 
ception full  of  promise  for  the  days  to  come.     Not 

*  See   "  Nemesis  of  Nations,"  p.  113. 

t  Philo  says  of  the  Essenes  that  there  was  not  a  slave  among 
them,  but  all  were  free,  mutually  working  for  each  other 
(Schiirer,  "The  Jewish  People  in  the  Time  of  Jesus  Christ," 
Div.  II. ,  vol.  ii.  p.  198). 


THE   LABOURER  AS  A   SLAVE  57 

only  were  the  status  and  treatment  of  their  slaves, 
such  as  they  were,  altogether  different  among  the 
Jews  from  w^hat  they  w^ere  anywhere  else,  slavery 
occupied  a  far  smaller  place  in  their  national 
economy  from  what  it  did  elsewhere.  At  the  time 
of  the  return  from  the  exile,  for  example,  there 
were  six  freemen  to  every  slave  among  those  who 
returned  to  the  Holy  Land  ;  and  even  if  that  is  not 
quite  decisive,  it  indicates  a  proportion  vastly 
different  from  that  which  prevailed  in  Greece,  where 
there  were  often  three,  or  even  four,  slaves  to 
one  freeman.  It  is  also  significant  that  in  the 
Old  Testament  there  is  no  mention  of  slave  mar- 
kets which  were  so  common  elsewhere ;  and  while 
there  are  references  to  runaway  slaves  and  to 
the  evils  which  resulted  from  the  cruel  and  un- 
law^ful  treatment  of  slaves,  there  are  no  traces 
whatever  of  the  servile  insurrections  which  were 
such  a  conspicuous  and  baleful  feature  of  Roman 
history. 

The  lot  of  the  Hebrew  slave  among  his  fellow- 
countrymen  was  not  oppressive.  As  compared 
with  what  prevailed  elsewhere  it  was  hardly  even 
irksome ;  and  when  the  unique  provisions  of  the 
year  of  Release  and  the  year  of  Jubilee  are  borne 
in  mind,  it  might  almost  be  said  that  it  was  not 
slavery  at  all,  as  slavery  was  understood  in  that 
old  pagan  world.  The  lot  of  foreign  slaves  in 
bondage  to  Hebrews  was  not  so  favourable,  but 
even  they  were  treated  in  a  humane  and  even 
brotherly  manner.  As  contrasted  with  slaves  else- 
where they  were  recognised  as  having  certain 
rights.  If,  for  instance,  a  slave  were  maimed  by  his 
master  he  had  to  be  set  free ;  while  if  a  female 
slave  were  taken  by  her  master  as  a  subordinate 


58  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE 

wife,  she  could  not  thereafter  be  sold  to  another 
master.  If  she  ceased  to  occupy  the  position  to 
which  she  had  been  raised  she  had  to  be  set  free. 
Man-stealing,  too,  which  was  of  the  essence  of 
the  system  in  other  lands,  was  a  capital  offence 
among  the  Hebrews.  All  through  the  Old  Tes- 
tament legislation  the  leaven  of  religion  and 
humanity  can  be  seen  at  work,  a  veritable  anti- 
cipation of  Christianity.  The  sanctity  of  manhood 
was  taught  and  practised ;  and  slavery  in  Palestine 
was  never  such  as  to  degrade  the  slave  beneath 
the  level  or  condition  of  a  man  as  it  did  every- 
where else.  The  just  and  compassionate  spirit 
and  character  of  the  religion  of  the  Old  Testament 
nowhere  emerges  more  distinctly  than  in  the  way 
in  which  the  lot  of  the  slave  was  made  tolerable, 
at  a  stage  in  the  development  of  the  race  and  of 
labour  when  emancipation  was  not  yet  possible. 
The  atmosphere  was  humane  and  in  some  respects 
even  genial ;  and  those  who  know  what  was 
going  on  in  other  lands  can  hardly  fail  to  see 
that  it  was  of  God.  Those  defenders  of  the 
faith  who  deem  it  wrong  to  teach  that  there  was 
progress  in  moral  conceptions  throughout  the  Old 
Testament  record  of  revelation  are  not  only 
oblivious  of  the  facts  of  the  case,  but  are  depriving 
themselves  of  much  that  proves  how  Divine  the 
Bible  is  and  how  graciously  God  was  leading  His 
people  in  the  only  pathway  in  which  it  was  then 
possible  for  them  to  walk.  It  is  truer  of  slavery 
than  of  any  other  old-world  institution  that  in 
order  to  remove  the  blight  God  had  to  wall  His 
people  in,  that  through  them  He  might  bless  all 
nations  and  lead  them  on  to  the  heights  to  be 
revealed  in  Christ. 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE  59 

The  place  which  was  accorded  to  free  labour 
among  the  Jews  is  also  as  remarkable  and  signifi- 
cant as  the  modifications  of  the  otherwise  universal 
system  of  slavery  which  are  to  be  found  in  their 
legislation  and  practice.  The  fact  that  with  the 
Hebrews  the  slave-owner  shared  in  the  work  which 
was  done  by  his  slaves  of  itself  did  much  to  remove 
the  worst  abuses  which  have  to  be  deplored  among 
other  peoples.  In  the  earlier  ages  as  they  are 
depicted  in  the  books  of  Judges,  Ruth,  and  Samuel, 
we  find  rich  and  poor,  high  and  low,  engaged 
together  in  pastoral  and  agricultural  pursuits  ;* 
while  for  the  later  ages  the  fact  that  both  Joseph 
and  Jesus  were  carpenters  and  Paul  and  Aquila 
tentmakers  shows  in  a  very  vivid  fashion  how 
difPerent  things  were  among  the  Jews  from  what 
they  were  all  around.  Indeed,  the  place  which 
free  labour  had  among  the  Hebrews,  when  studied 
in  the  light  of  its  degradation  and  disappearance 
among  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  is  of  itself  suflBLcient 
to  prove  that  slavery,  as  they  knew  it,  was  vastly 
different  from  the  system  which  prevailed  among 
the  Gentiles.  And  this  encouragement  and  honour- 
ing of  free  labour  was  an  integral  part  of  the 
Jewish  legislation  both  earlier  and  later,  and  in  no 
sense  an  accident.  Under  the  influence  of  the  spirit 
which  breathes  all  through  the  Mosaic  law  and 
practice  the  shepherd  and  farmer  had  a  high  place 
in   Israel ;    while   the   husbandman   and  gardener 

*C/'.Job  xxxi.  13-15.  Job  treated  his  servants  as  persons,  not 
as  possessions.  "This  treatment,"  says  A.  B.  Davidson,  "was 
forced  on  him  by  the  feeling  that  all  men,  his  servants  and 
himself  alike,  are  children  of  the  same  God  who  will  avenge 
wrongs  done  to  any,  whether  they  be  bond  or  free."  Cf.  for 
New  Testament,  Eph.  vi.  9,  and  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas  xix. 


60  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE 

attained  great  skill  and  proficiency  all  through  the 
Holy  Land.  Nor  is  it  enough  to  say  that  the  soil 
and  climate  conduced  to  this,  for  they  themselves 
did  much  to  provide  these  better  conditions  for  such 
labour.  By  means  of  terraces  cut  out  on  the  slopes 
of  the  hills  they  were  cultivated  almost  to  their 
summits,  and  even  the  rocky  ground  was  made 
fruitful  by  mould  being  put  on  it.  The  promised 
land  of  the  Hebrews  flowed  with  milk  and  honey 
as  much  through  their  own  industry  and  skill  as 
through  any  advantages  of  situation  and  soil. 
Their  loyalty  to  free  labour  was  thus  twice  blessed. 
It  filled  their  land  with  plenty,  whereas  slavery 
makes  a  garden  a  desert ;  and  it  prevented  slavery 
from  attaining  such  proportions  or  assuming  such 
a  character  as  to  blight  their  homes  and  destroy 
their  faith.  Those  who  think  of  the  Jews  mainly 
as  lenders  of  money  or  hawkers  of  old  clothes 
should  study  them  at  their  work  while  they  were 
yet  a  nation.  Mining  for  copper  and  iron  was 
vigorously  carried  on,  and  even  before  the  Exile 
such  trades  as  carpenters  and  masons  had  become 
distinct  from  each  other.  There  were  potters  and 
fullers,  too,  and  even  shaving  had  become  an  occu- 
pation by  itself.  At  the  beginning  of  the  Christian 
era  many  places  had  names  which  were  derived 
from  the  trades  with  which  they  were  specially 
associated  :  such  as  Arbal,  from  its  rope- walks,  and 
Kaf ar,  from  its  potteries.  "  Love  labour  "  was  a 
favourite  maxim  with  Schemaiah,  the  teacher 
of  Hillel ;  while  the  Kabala  Judah  said,  "  If  a  man 
does  not  teach  his  son  a  trade  it  is  as  if  he  had 
taught  him  to  steal."  A  famous  digger  of  wells  in 
the  time  of  our  Lord  said  to  a  famous  Rabbi  at  the 
time  when  the  Rabbis  were  at  their  greatest,  "I  am 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE  61 

quite  as  great  a  man  as  thou  art."  "  How  so  ?  "  de- 
manded the  Rabbi.  "  Because  no  less  than  thou  I 
supply  the  wants  of  the  community."  What  a 
difference  between  such  a  sentiment  and  Cicero's 
reference  to  the  dyer  as  a  vile  artisan !  And  this 
difference  between  the  standpoint  of  Israel  and 
that  of  all  the  other  nations  comes  out  in  the  entire 
impression  which  the  study  of  the  literature  of  the 
Jews  makes  on  the  reader  even  more  than  in  any 
scattered  sayings  which  have  come  down  to  us.  It 
is  impossible  not  to  feel  that  the  atmosphere 
throughout,  as  regards  labour,  is  not  essentially 
different  from  that  of  our  own  literature  ;  whereas 
the  foul  odour  of  slavery  assails  us  everywhere  in 
the  classical  writings.  It  was  only  after  they  were 
scattered  over  the  face  of  the  earth  that  the  Jews 
betook  themselves  to  commerce,  and  in  particular 
to  trafficking  in  money.  They  abandoned  agricul- 
ture and  husbandry  only  when  it  was  no  longer 
possible  for  them  to  follow  these  occupations  ;  the 
effects  of  the  changes  which  made  them  a  nation  of 
usurers  and  pedlars  have  been  as  momentous  for 
the  peoples  among  whom  their  lot  has  been  cast  as 
they  have  been  for  themselves. 

In  view  of  this  preparation  in  the  Old  Testament 
it  is  not  surprising  that  the  New  Testament  every- 
where honours  labour  and  that,  from  the  first,  a 
place  was  found  for  it  in  the  Christian  Church  which 
it  had  never  attained  anywhere  else.  Through  it 
the  nobler  conceptions  which  had  obtained  among 
the  Jews  were  applied  the  wide  world  over  and 
were  spiritualised  even  as  they  were  universalised. 
That  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  Himself  had  grown  up 
in  the  home  of  an  artisan  and  had  Himself  been  a 
working  joiner  must  have  made  a  tremendous  im- 


62  THE   LABOURER  AS   A  SLAVE 

pression  on  the  life  and  thought  of  the  age,  as  the 
Empire  began  to  come  under  the  spell  of  His  gospel 
for  the  weak  and  heavy  laden.  That  His  great 
apostles  were  "  the  rude  common  men  of  the  work- 
shop, the  farm,  and  the  fishing-boat,"  and  like  their 
Master  had  worked  with  their  hands  ;  and  that  St. 
Paul,  the  most  famous  of  His  evangelists  in  the 
regions  beyond,  continued  to  work  at  his  trade  after 
he  became  an  apostle — the  tentmaker  having  an 
advantage  over  the  fisherman  in  that  respect — 
must  also  have  done  much  to  spread  and  deepen 
the  conviction  that  a  new  thing  had  happened 
among  men. 

No  wonder  that  labour  is  extolled  in  the  Epistles 
and  is  set  forth  as  one  of  the  outstanding  means 
whereby  Christians  could  glorify  God  and  commend 
their  Saviour  to  their  fellow-men.  Even  the  slave 
could  do  that  by  his  loyalty  and  truth,  and  how 
much  more  the  free  labourer.  Through  his  labour 
he  could  provide  honestly  for  himself  and  those 
dependent  on  him  and  could  give  to  those  in  need  ; 
although  he  must  often  have  found  it  difficult  to  do 
this.  Free  labour  was  to  be  the  great  means  by 
which  Christian  charity  was  to  manifest  itself,  and 
even  more  than  free  labour  this  first-fruit  of  it  was 
a  new  thing  under  the  sun.*  Free  labour  was  an 
end  in  itself,  and  at  the  same  time  it  and  the  new 
dignity  which  had  come  to  it  were  to  be  the  fore- 
most means  whereby  slavery  was  to  be  destroyed 
at  the  roots  and  the  new  era  ushered  in. 

Thus  and  thus  only  could  the  master  evil  be 
undermined  without  arousing  an  opposition  which 

*  In  his  recent  "Early  Church  History  to  a.d.  313"  Pro- 
fessor Gwatkin  dwells  on  the  fact  that  the  organisation  of 
charity  was  a  Christian  invention. 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE  63 

would  only  have  added  to  the  horrors  and  been 
fatal  to  the  end  in  view.  The  power  of  vested 
interests  and  inveterate  habit,  yea,  the  very 
genius  of  paganism,  were  thus  to  be  sapped  and 
destroyed,  as  the  sunshine  melts  the  iceberg  which 
has  defied  the  storm,  as  by  the  spirit  of  the  living 
God.  Nowhere  is  the  antagonism  between  Chris- 
tianity and  paganism  more  essential  or  more 
clearly  defined  than  in  this  connection.  As  has 
been  shown,  the  higher  the  degree  of  culture  which 
was  attained  the  greater  was  the  depreciation  of 
physical  toil,  and  the  more  persistent  the  deter- 
mination not  to  take  part  in  it.  But  in  the  new 
era  we  find  the  chief  of  the  apostles,  the  man 
who  is  sometimes  said  to  have  been  the  real 
founder  of  Christianity,  preferring  to  support 
himself  by  the  work  of  his  hands  to  being  de- 
pendent on  his  willing  hearers  and  converts.  The 
difference  is  not  one  of  degree  but  of  kind.  Accord- 
ing to  Plato  and  Aristotle  manual  labour,  even 
that  of  the  merchant  and  freeman,  distorted  the 
character  of  the  workmen  and  rendered  them 
incapable  of  the  highest  forms  of  life.  It  was  not 
in  such  pursuits  that  the  moral  and  spiritual 
development  of  the  personality  of  the  worker 
could  be  looked  for.  But  the  Lord  Jesus  gathered 
a  company  of  working  men  around  Him  to  be 
associated  in  His  great  enterprise  with  Himself, 
also  a  working  man,  that  the  new  faith  which 
claims  to  be  final  and  absolute  might  be  pro- 
claimed and  spread.  There  was  nothing  in  any 
phase  of  Greek  and  Roman  religion  which  was  in 
any  way  calculated  to  act  as  a  corrective  to  the 
attitude  which  their  philosophers  encouraged 
towards  the  labourer  and  his  work.     As  a  matter 


64  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE 

of  fact  their  religion  had  much  to  do  with  creating 
such  a  spirit  and  with  proving  to  subsequent  in- 
quirers that  it  is  the  inevitable  attitude  of  unre- 
generate  human  nature  in  its  selfishness  and 
pride.  But  in  the  gospel  labour  was  not  only 
ennobled  and  consecrated,  it  was  used  to  hasten 
the  silent  revolution  by  which  slavery  was  doomed 
and  ultimately  destroyed.  That  this  difference  in 
attitude  was  essential  and  not  accidental  is  brought 
out  not  only  in  the  writings  of  the  two  systems  as 
they  confronted  each  other  on  the  field  of  the 
world,  but  on  every  page  of  history  as  their  re- 
spective principles  have  been  embodied  in  actual 
deeds  among  the  nations.  More  than  any  other 
part  of  their  teaching  what  the  Fathers  taught 
about  the  dignity  of  human  labour  was  revolution- 
ary as  against  slavery.  The  obligation  to  work 
was  made  inseparable  from  the  law  of  love.  Work 
was  regarded  as  indispensable  to  the  perfection  of 
Christian  character.* 

It  must  be  frankly  admitted,  however,  that  it 
has  been  and  still  is  a  stumbling-block  to  some  and 
a  puzzle  to  many  that  the  revolution  by  which 
this  great  change  was  brought  about  was  a  silent 
one,  and  that  the  New  Testament  has  so  little  to 
say  about  the  great  master  evil,  the  great  open 
sore  of  the  age  in  which  it  was  written.!     Yet  it 

*  "The  organisation  of  industry  owed  not  a  little  to  the 
influence  of  the  Church  in  the  first  enthusiasm  of  its  faith  " 
(J.  8.  Mackenzie,  "An  Introduction  to  Social  Philosophy," 
p.  77). 

f  "The  gospel  never  directly  attacks  slavery  as  an 
institution  ;  the  apostles  never  command  the  liberation  of 
slaves  as  an  absolute  duty.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that 
St.  Paul  in  this  Epistle  stops  short  of  any  positive  injunc- 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE  65 

may  turn  out  that  this  feature  of  the  work  of 
emancipation  instead  of  being  a  ground  for  censure 
should  serve  as  an  example  of  how  enduring  work 
in  the  moral  realm  can  best  be  done.  It  is  not 
surprising,  perhaps,  that  our  Lord  Himself  should 
have  said  so  little  which  bears  directly  on  slavery, 
since  He  always  dealt  with  the  actual  and  concrete 
evils  of  His  time  as  they  confronted  Him,  and  He 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  personally  brought 
into  contact  with  the  evils  of  slavery  during  His 
earthly  ministry  in  such  a  way  as  to  call  for  His 
intervention.  The  Jews  were  practically  free  from 
the  curse  under  which  all  other  peoples  were  then 
groaning.  He  and  His  immediate  followers  were 
all  free  labourers ;  and  it  was  His  mission  to  lay 
down  the  principles,  to  live  the  life  and  to  make 
the  atonement,  which  would  ere  long  sound  the 
death-knell  of  the  whole  system.  But  it  was 
altogether  different  with  the  apostles  in  their 
work.  Not  only  did  Christianity  come  into  con- 
tact with  slavery  wherever  it  went,  it  had  ere  long 
both  slaves  and  slave-owners  in  the  membership  of 
all  its  Churches.  In  every  province  into  which  its 
ubiquitous  and  fearless  emissaries  went  the  evil 
system  confronted  them  in  all  its  vileness,  naked 
and  unashamed.  Yet  the  thing  which  seems  to 
us  to  be  so  unspeakably  monstrous  is  nowhere 
categorically  or  passionately  denounced,  but  instead 
is  referred  to,  we  cannot  say  dealt  with,  only  in  an 
incidental  fashion.  Masters  are  exhorted  to  be 
just  and  kind.  Slaves  are  exhorted  to  be  obedient 
and  patient.     The  horror  itself  is  never  condemned 

tion.     He    tells    Philemon    to    do    very    much    more    than 
emancipate    his    slave,    but    this    one    thing    he    does    not 
directly  enjoin"  (Lightfoot  on  Philemon,  p.  389). 
OhriatianUy  and  Labov/r,  Q 


66  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE 

as  a  hideous  outrage  on  everything  human  and 
Divine.  We  cannot  even  claim  that  it  was  de- 
nounced as  abnormal.  St.  Paul  was  proud  of  his 
friendship  with  Philemon,  the  saintly  Colossian 
slave-owner,  and  praises  him  highly.  It  was  at  his 
instigation  that  the  runaway  slave  Onesimus  went 
back  to  his  master,  if  not  to  his  slavery.  This 
attitude  of  the  early  Church  has  been  felt  by  many 
to  be  all  the  more  oppressive  that,  as  a  historian  of 
the  Empire  declares,  "the  sum  of  all  negro  slavery 
is  but  a  drop  compared  with  the  sufferings  of  the 
Roman  slaves."  The  slave  men  were  often  teachers 
and  tutors  in  the  household,  and  held  posts  such  as 
steward  and  factor.  The  slave  women  were  not 
half  savage  blacks,  but  often  of  the  same  race  as 
their  cruel  abusers  and  tyrants. 

Considerations  such  as  these  have  once  and 
again  led  expositors,  short-sighted  and  one-sided 
or  prejudiced  and  hostile,  to  declare  that  Scripture 
is  on  the  side  of  the  abominable  "institution." 
But  those  who  have  faced  the  whole  situation  in 
the  light  of  all  the  circumstances  in  which  these 
early  Christians  had  to  do  their  work,  have  been 
convinced  that  most  emphatically  this  is  not  the 
case.  It  is  not  even  necessary  to  plead  what 
might  well  be  pled,  that  even  inspired  apostles 
may  not  see  all  the  implications  of  the  gospel  all 
at  once ;  for  it  is  becoming  increasingly  evident 
that  the  method  adopted  was  chosen  deliberately, 
and  was  abundantly  justified  by  its  fruits.  Any 
decree  of  the  apostles  regarding  slavery,  such  as 
that  issued  by  the  Council  at  Jerusalem  regarding 
circumcision,  would  have  had  weight  only  with 
the  Christians,  and  for  long  they  were  either  few 
or  uninfiuential.     It   would  be   as  fair   to   blame 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE  67 

some  obscure  sect  in  India  for  not  ending  the  in- 
temperance which  is  the  shame  of  the  British 
Empire  as  to  blame  the  Christians  of  the  first 
century  for  not  openly  assailing  slavery  as  it  then 
prevailed  throughout  the  Empire  of  Rome.  Yet 
they  did  set  themselves  to  destroy  the  evil,  and 
they  swept  away  the  barriers  which  stood  in  the 
way  of  emancipation  in  a  fashion  all  the  more 
effective  that  it  was  indirect.  A  frontal  attack 
would  have  been  fatal  all  round.  Many  attempts 
had  been  made  to  set  the  slaves  free  by  insurrec- 
tion, some  of  them  within  the  memory  of  the 
apostles,  but  these  had  only  added  to  their  misery 
and  forged  their  fetters  more  firmly.  The  great 
claim  which  can  fairly  be  made  for  the  method  of 
the  early  Church  is  that  it  succeeded  where  every 
other  had  failed ;  and  it  succeeded  because  it  went 
to  the  very  roots  of  the  evil.  There  never  has 
been  a  force  so  revolutionary  as  the  Christianity 
which  assailed  the  corrupt  society  of  the  Grseco- 
Roman  Empire.  Over  against  the  denial  of  the 
rights  of  humanity  it  set  the  doctrine  of  the  love 
of  God  and  of  the  spiritual  dignity  of  man  as 
made  in  the  image  of  God.  Over  against  egoism 
is  set  the  demand  for  universal  charity ;  while 
over  against  the  prevalent  contempt  for  free 
labour  is  set  the  life  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  the 
Carpenter  and  the  epoch-making  declaration  that 
in  Him  there  is  neither  bond  nor  free.  By  im- 
planting within  the  sad  and  sated  pagan  world 
the  seeds  of  emancipation  and  renewal  it  did  what 
that  world  needed  most,  and  what  alone  could 
save  it. 

In    the    new  Christian    society    all  alike  were 
the  servants    of    the    Lord  Christ  and   members 


68  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE 

one  of  another.  No  servile  war  was  proclaimed, 
that  would  only  have  deepened  the  woe,  and  the 
fear  of  it  must  ever  have  been  in  the  minds  of  the 
responsible  leaders.  But  the  miserable  creatures 
who  had  been  accounted  mere  soulless  bodies  to 
be  broken  or  sold  when  old  or  useless — mere 
animals,  with  the  one  distinction  that  they  could 
be  the  instruments  of  lust,  and  could  suffer  as 
other  animals  could  not — were  raised  to  the 
consciousness  of  their  true  position  as  rational 
and  made  for  God,  by  being  called  to  a  new  life, 
a  life  of  freedom  in  God.*  This  Divine  revelation 
has  wrought  such  a  marvellous  work  that  it  is 
hardly  possible  for  those  who  now  live  in  the  light 
of  it  to  realise  what  it  must  have  meant  then.  In 
every  sense  of  the  word  it  was  life  from  the  dead. 
But  even  yet  we  can  understand  in  part  what  it 
meant  from  what  we  know  of  its  results,  which 
were  both  great  and  immediate.  Not  only  were 
the  slaves  who  were  won  for  Christ  saved 
thereby  from  the  worst  horrors  of  their  condition, 
through  the  restoration  of  their  self-respect ;  the 
work  of  emancipation,  which  is  never  to  cease 
until  every  form  of  slavery  has  disappeared,  began 
at  once. 

The  process  was  as  gradual  and  silent  as  the 
rising  of  the  sun  after  the  darkness  of  the  night, 

*  Lecky  has  it  that  the  new  religion  was  at  the  outset 
actually  and  without  any  figurative  exaggeration  "a  procla- 
mation of  the  universal  brotherhood  of  man."  Miss  Cobbe 
says,  ' '  Not  till  the  age  of  the  Gospels,  of  Plutarch  and 
Marcus  Aurelius,  does  the  feeling  that  we  call  philanthropy 
seem  to  have  emerged  into  conscious  activity."  Mr.  Kidd 
says,  "  Greek  morality  at  no  period  embraced  any  conception 
of  humanity." 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE  69 

but  it  was  as  sure.  Jesus  had  given  a  new  place 
to  brotherhood,  and  had  revealed  a  new  con- 
ception of  material  good ;  and  by  the  middle  of 
the  first  century  we  find  the  new  leaven  working 
even  outside  the  Church.  A  kindlier  tone  and  a 
gentler  spirit  began  to  be  manifested  among  the 
Stoics,  and  Stoicism  was  paganism  at  its  best ;  and 
the  most  natural  explanation  of  the  change,  as 
well  as  of  the  gradual  ameliorations  which  began 
to  be  introduced  into  the  legislation  of  the  Empire, 
is  some  kind  of  acquaintance  with  Christianity 
and  the  new  atmosphere  of  mercy  which  it  was 
creating.  Within  the  Church  itself  we  find  St. 
Paul  describing  a  slave  convert  as  a  brother  be- 
loved, and  looking  for  his  reception  by  his  offended 
master  as  such ;  and  by  the  year  140  we  find  as 
the  Bishop  of  Rome  one  Pius,  who  seems  to  have 
been  the  younger  brother  of  the  author  Hermas, 
who  was  a  slave.  In  the  beginning  of  the  third 
century,  too,  Callisthus,  who  had  been  a  slave 
himself,  became  bishop  in  the  Imperial  city, 
showing  how  surely,  if  also  somewhat  slowly,  the 
new  spirit  and  doctrine  had  become  an  integral 
part  of  the  life  and  creed  of  the  Church.  It  was 
the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  working  in  the  hearts  and 
lives  of  slaves  and  slave-masters  alike  which 
finally  made  the  gigantic  evil,  which  servile  insur- 
rections had  only  aggravated,  disappear  like  some 
huge  iceberg  which  has  defied  the  winter's  blasts, 
but  melts  away  before  the  genial  rays  of  the 
summer  sunshine.  "In  many  ways,"  as  Dr. 
Horton  has  it,  "  the  early  Church  was  a  prophecy  ; 
it  sowed  a  seed  for  distant  centuries ;  and  in  the 
matter  of  equality  it  proceeded  by  securing  the 
spiritual  reality,  without  denouncing  that  institu- 


70  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE 

tion  of  slavery  which  seems  to  us  now  so  glaringly 
inconsistent  with  the  gospel."* 

In  the  new  Society  which  Christ  instituted  all 
the  old  disabilities  which  had  cribbed  and  cabined 
and  confined  mankind  were  cancelled,  and  the 
problems  connected  with  labour  and  those  to 
which  slavery  gave  rise  were  dealt  with  just  as 
those  were  which  were  connected  with  the  posi- 
tion of  women  or  the  standing  of  the  Gentiles. 
The  old  distinctions  were  simply  transcended  in 
the  unity  which  made  all  things  new.  God  had 
made  no  distinction  in  grace  between  the  bond 
and  the  free,  and,  inconsistencies  apart,  the 
Church  made  none.  The  slave  was  taught  that 
he  was  a  son  of  God.  His  master  was  taught 
that    he    must    treat    his    Christian    slave    as    a 

*  "The  kingdom  of  God  with  its  sublime  universalism 
offers  its  invitation  to  all  men  as  children  of  a  heavenly 
Father,  and  binds  those  who  follow  His  call  into  a  Society. 
...  In  the  Christian  Church  the  poor  man  found  the  civic 
rights  of  the  Divine  kingdom  accorded  to  him  without  re- 
serve as  God's  own  child.  ...  To  the  slave,  the  lowest  and 
most  unhappy  class  of  Graeco-Roman  Society,  the  rights  of 
man  were  restored.  In  the  Chiirch  they  heard  the  magic 
tones  of  the  words  :  '  Ye  are  men  for  whom  also  Christ 
has  died ;  redeemed,  to  whom  the  same  position  belongs  in 
the  kingdom  as  to  your  masters.'  Masters  also  heard  in  the 
Church  the  solemn  admonition  that  they  were  brethren  of 
their  slaves,  since  both  had  taken  upon  themselves  by  volun- 
tary choice  the  yoke  of  obedience  to  Christ  (1  Cor.  vii.  21  fl.  ; 
Eph.  vi.  5  ff.).  When  Paul  uttered  thoughts  like  these  in 
his  letter  to  Philemon,  in  which  he  interceded  for  the  run- 
away slave  of  the  latter,  he  was  writing  the  charter  of 
emancipation  for  the  many  millions  of  slaves  who  were  held 
down  by  a  minority  in  a  degrading  bondage  "  (quoted  in 
Hastings'  Bible  Dictionary  ;  sub  voce  servant,  from  Mangold, 
Humanitdt  und  Christenthum), 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE  71 

brother  in  the  household  of  faith,  with  the  inevi- 
table result  that  emancipation  became  increasingly- 
common.  It  was  not  an  uncommon  thing  for  a 
believing  slave  when  examined  before  a  judge 
to  say,  "  I  am  not  a  slave.  I  am  a  Christian. 
Christ  has  set  me  free."  Growing  out  of  the 
same  conception,  so  full  of  promise,  we  find  that 
scarcely  any  Christian  inscriptions  over  the  dead 
speak  of  them  as  slaves  or  freedmen,  but  only 
as  the  slaves  or  freedmen  of  Christ ;  as  if  human 
slavery  should  not  even  be  mentioned  in  the  king- 
dom of  God,  in  which  all  are  free.  In  every  Church 
there  were  slave  members ;  men  and  women  who 
loved  much  because  they  had  been  forgiven  much. 
Masters  were  sometimes  won  for  Christianity 
through  their  slaves  and  slaves  through  their 
masters.  There  were  slaves,  too,  who  sealed  their 
testimony  with  their  blood,  with  a  dignity  and 
courage  as  great  as  that  of  the  noblest  patrician. 
They  both  lived  and  died  with  all  the  nobility  of 
those  who  were  freeborn  in  Christ.  Blandina  the 
slave  girl  and  her  mistress  alike  died  for  their 
Lord,  who  had  died  for  them.  Perpetua,  the  noble 
matron,  perished  for  Christ  along  with  Felicitas 
the  slave.  It  was  everywhere  taught  by  the 
Church,  and  in  many  ways  the  teaching  was 
attested  as  real,  that  altogether  apart  from  any 
adventitious  value  which  wealth  or  rank  might 
seem  to  give,  the  human  soul  was  of  infinite 
worth  in  the  sight  of  Him  who  came  to  seek 
and  save  the  lost,  and  in  doing  so  had  died 
a  slave's  death.  Burial  inscriptions  and  pictures, 
too,  sometimes  show  a  master  standing  before 
the  Good  Shepherd  with  a  band  of  slaves  whom 
he  had  liberated  at  his  death  and  who  were  plead- 


72  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE 

ing  for  him  at  the  last  judgment.  In  this  and 
in  other  ways,  both  indirect  and  direct,  the  work 
of  emancipation  was  encouraged  and  held  up  to 
emulation.  And  it  went  steadily  on  and  was 
often  practised  on  a  large  scale,  even  if  some 
of  the  figures  which  have  come  down  to  us  must 
be  accepted  with  many  qualifications.  St.  Melania 
is  said  to  have  emancipated  8,000  slaves ;  St. 
Ovidius,  a  rich  Christian  and  martyr  in  Gaul, 
5,000 ;  Chromatins,  a  Roman  prefect  under  Dio- 
cletian, 1,400;  Hermes,  a  prefect  in  the  reign  of 
Trajan,  1,250,  and  so  on.*  When  St.  Paul  sent 
Onesimus  back  as  a  brother  beloved  he  was 
only  acting  up  to  the  Christian  ideal,  and  in 
the  light  of  that  ideal  the  foul  system  withered 
and  finally  perished,  like  some  foul  fungus  which 
can  only  live  in  the  dark.  Christ,  in  the  days 
of  His  flesh,  had  preached  the  gospel  to  the 
poor  and  had  gathered  the  needy  and  wretched 
around  Him  so  systematically  that  it  was  used  as 
a  reproach  against  Him,  and  the  early  Church 
was  happily  sufficiently  loyal  to  Him  and  His 
example  to  earn  the  same  reproach.  Even  if  it 
was  the  case  that  sometimes  the  man  with  the  gold 
ring  and  goodly  apparel  was  received  with  special 
favour,  it  was  also  true,  as  the  cynic  Lucian  bears 
testimony,  that  the  "Legislator  of  the  Christians 
has  persuaded  them  that  they  are  all  brothers," 
while  Celsus  jeered  at  their  success  because  it 
was  due  to  their  winning  slaves  and  children  and 
women. 

It    would  appear  that  the  dispensation   of  the 
sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  had  much  to  do 
with    the    spread     of    this    new    atmosphere     of 
*  Lecky's  "History  of  European  Morals." 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE  73 

brotherhood,  in  which  the  monstrous  thing  gra- 
dually disappeared.  The  Romans  had  strictly 
excluded  their  slaves  from  taking  any  part  in 
the  patriotic  worship,  and  the  death-warrant  of 
slavery  was  really  signed  when  slaves  and  slave- 
owners found  themselves  on  an  equal  footing  as 
the  guests  and  brethren  of  Christ.  Things  could 
never  be  quite  the  same  after  master  and  slave  had 
sat  side  by  side  at  the  Love  Feast  and  the  Lord's 
Supper.  That  there  was  no  difference  in  colour 
to  be  overcome,  and  frequently  none  in  point  of 
education  and  attainment,  of  necessity  rendered 
the  work  of  assimilation  and  emancipation  all 
the  more  rapid  and  sure  when  once  it  had  begun. 
The  difficulties  which  are  still  so  real  in  the 
Church  life  of  the  Southern  States  of  America 
can  seldom  have  been  felt  in  the  Old  World,  so 
far  as  fellowship  in  worship  was  concerned. 
There  was  no  racial  line  and  there  is  probably  as 
much  difference  between  an  East  End  congrega- 
tion and  one  in  the  West  End  of  London  or 
Glasgow  as  there  was  between  the  slaves  and 
their  owners  in  the  primitive  Church.  The  gospel, 
too,  had  brought  such  gladness  into  the  lives  of 
the  slaves,  whom  it  filled  with  a  new  hope,  that 
their  servile  condition  became  a  trivial  thing  in 
comparison  with  the  spiritual  freedom  into  which 
Christ  had  called  them.  Not  that  any  unworthy 
acquiescence  in  or  submission  to  degrading  con- 
ditions of  life  was  encouraged,  as  some  have 
alleged.  The  same  suggestion  has  sometimes 
been  made  regarding  the  otherworldliness  of 
Christians  in  our  own  time,  and  the  error  now 
may  enable  us  to  appreciate  the  error  regarding 
these  earlier  days. 


74  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE 

Eager  reformers  have  asserted  that  modem 
Christianity  is  the  enemy  of  reform  inasmuch  as 
it  encourages  an  obsequious  contentment  with 
things  as  they  are.  It  is  said  to  dwarf  the  present 
through  comparing  it  with  the  glory  beyond, 
and  by  teaching  that  Christ  can  be  served  as 
truly  amid  want  and  oppression  as  in  freedom. 
But  the  friends  of  the  gospel  cannot  but  feel 
that  the  charge  is  painfully  ridiculous  and 
altogether  lacking  in  justification.  Their  wish 
cannot  but  be  that  the  indictment,  that  our 
Christianity  has  made  so  much  of  spiritual  things 
that  it  has  robbed  the  movement  for  social  reform 
of  support  which  it  would  otherwise  have  re- 
ceived, had  more  basis  in  solid  fact.  Other- 
worldliness  is  not  the  Church's  danger  in  these 
days,  but  just  ordinary  worldliness  of  the  bad 
sort,  and  there  is  little  reason  for  believing  that 
it  was  ever  very  much  otherwise.  Those  who 
in  any  age  bring  this  charge  against  the  gospel 
can  have  very  little  acquaintance  with  Church 
history.  It  is  altogether  beyond  doubt  not  only 
that  all  through  the  centuries  Christians  have 
been  the  most  eager  and  successful  reformers,  but 
that  whole-hearted  submission  to  the  holy  will  of 
God  has  never  meant  slavish  submission  or  blind 
obedience  to  the  will  of  man.  Even  those  whose 
theories  might  appear  to  have  tended  to  fatalism 
have  seldom  or  never  been  fatalists  in  practice. 
Historically  viewed,  for  example,  Calvinists  have 
always  combined  the  most  strenuous  advocacy  of 
the  liberty  of  the  subject  with  the  most  strenuous 
insistence  on  the  sovereignty  of  God.  So,  too, 
when  St.  Paul  enjoined  the  slave  members  of  the 
Corinthian  Church  to  be  content  and  by  the  grace 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE  75 

of  God  to  turn  even  their  toil  as  slaves  into 
Divine  service,  he  was  careful  to  add  that  that  did 
not  preclude  them  from  securing  their  freedom  if 
they  could.  "  If  thou  mayest  be  free  use  it 
rather."  *  This  does  not  mean,  as  some  have  held, 
that  they  were  to  make  use  of  their  servile  condi- 
tion even  if  freedom  came  within  their  reach,  but 
that  while  they  were  to  rise  superior  to  their 
slavery  as  Christ's  freemen  even  while  they  were 
slaves,  they  were  rather  to  make  use  of  their 
freedom  if  they  could  be  free.  And  there  must 
have  been  a  sense  in  which  the  yoke  of  slavery 
was  never  felt  to  be  so  unutterably  galling  as 
when  those  who  were  under  it  had  been  set  free 
by  Christ.  How  intolerable  it  was  that  those 
whom  He  had  redeemed  and  called  to  be  His 
brethren  should  be  driven  like  soulless  cattle,  and 
driven  by  those  who  were  still  in  bondage  to 
unforgiven  sin!  In  later  times  this  was  explicitly 
used  as  an  argument  against  serfdom,  and  it 
cannot  but  have  been  operative  all  through. 

The  state  of  the  case,  then,  would  seem  to  be 
that  while  the  New  Testament  contains  no  specific 
legislation  regarding  either  free  labour  or  slavery, 
it  set  the  forces  in  operation  which  made  labour 
honourable  and  which  subverted  and  overthrew 
slavery,  and  necessitated  its  final  disappearance. 
There  were  many  ebbs  in   the   flowing   tide,   but 

*  1  Cor.  vii.  21.  In  his  commentary  on  Philippians  and 
Philemon  in  the  "International  Critical  Conmientary"  Dr. 
Vincent  takes  this  text  to  mean  that  the  bondman  was  to 
use  and  improve  his  condition  for  the  service  of  God  and  to 
abide  in  it  even  though  he  might  have  the  opportvmity  of 
being  free ;  but  the  opposite  view  which  is  held  among  others 
by  Calvin,  Lightfoot,  Evans,  and  Findlay  is  to  be  preferred. 


76  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE 

it  rose  inch  by  inch  until  slavery  was  at  last 
drowned  out.  In  the  middle  of  the  fourth  cen- 
tury an  anathema  was  pronounced  by  the  Synod 
of  Gangra  against  any  one  who  encouraged  slaves 
to  leave  their  masters,  which  probably  shows  that 
some  were  giving  this  encouragement.  Later  in 
the  same  century  Chrysostom  had  to  denounce 
Christian  ladies  for  cruelty  to  their  slaves,  which 
shows  how  much  paganism  there  still  was  in  the 
Church.  But,  according  to  Lecky,  by  the  twelfth 
century  slavery  was  very  rare,  and  by  the  four- 
teenth was  almost  unknown.  And  the  longer  the 
situation  is  studied  and  understood  the  more  will 
it  appear  that  the  method  adopted  was  the  only 
hopeful  one ;  and  even  those  who  groan  in  spirit  at 
the  apparent  indiifference  of  the  New  Testament  to 
this  sum  of  all  villainies  cannot  but  admit  that  the 
slow  sapping  process  which  was  followed  accom- 
plished what  no  great  frontal  attack  could  have 
done,  and  in  a  case  like  this  the  result  justifies  the 
method ;  and  nothing  succeeds  like  success.  The 
first  thing  which  had  to  be  done  was  to  create  a 
new  social  situation,  a  new  social  world  we  might 
call  it ;  and  that  cannot  be  done  in  a  day.  With- 
out such  a  new  atmosphere  abolition  would  have 
led  to  nothing  but  disaster,  even  if  abolition  had 
been  possible  ;  and  just  as  the  new  environment 
was  created,  as  only  the  gospel  could  create  it,  the 
dark  shadows  began  to  disappear  and  slavery  died 
a  natural  death.  Slavery,  as  we  have  seen,  was 
an  integral  part  of  the  old  Roman  constitution, 
and  that  wonderfully  homogeneous  system  and 
the  interests  bound  up  with  it  could  only  be 
affected  gradually.  It  need  scarcely  be  wondered 
at,  therefore,  that  it  took  time  even  for  believers 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE  77 

in  Christ  to  discover  and  develop  and,  above  all, 
apply  the  bearings  of  the  gospel  ethics  as  regards 
the  civil  and  social  relationships.  It  cannot  be 
claimed  that  even  yet,  in  all  the  light  of  the  revealing 
centuries,  we  ourselves  have  realised  everything 
that  Christianity  involves  as  regards  the  brother- 
hood of  man.  If  we  had,  it  is  not  possible  to 
believe  that  such  a  huge  anachronism  as  war 
would  still  occupy  such  a  prominent  place  in 
every  Christian  land.  It  is  probable  that  the 
first  century  was  far  from  being  the  slowest  of 
the  centuries  to  appreciate  and  respond  to  the 
teaching  of  the  Cross  regarding  the  clamant  evil 
of  the  time  ;  and  the  thing  which  we  have  most 
cause  to  regret  is  that  the  process  of  discovery  and 
application  was  not  continuous  but  was  ere  long 
so  rudely  interrupted.  The  antagonism  between 
Christianity  and  paganism  regarding  labour  was 
fundamental  and  admitted  of  no  compromise  or 
accommodation,  and  when  in  the  conflict  of  the 
early  centuries  paganism  avenged  itself  for  many 
a  defeat,  by  forcing  its  way  into  the  sacred  con- 
fines so  that  the  captive  often  conquered  its  con- 
queror, there  was  confusion  and  even  reaction  in 
relation  to  slavery  and  free  labour. 

To  this  day  many  Christians  in  all  classes  of 
society  are  under  the  influence  of  pagan  concep- 
tions of  labour,  and  view  it  from  a  heathen  stand- 
point and  not  from  the  standpoint  of  Christ.  Their 
ideal  seems  to  be  to  do  as  little  as  they  can,  as  if 
work  were  an  evil  and  not  a  good.  Even  as  re- 
gards slavery  our  surprise  that  Philemon  kept 
slaves  may  well  be  modified  when  we  find  that 
in  1747  George  Whitefield,  the  great  evangelist, 
and  a  man  much  used  of  God,  expended  £300, 


78  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE 

which  the  people  of  Charleston  had  given  him, 
in  buying  land  and  negroes,  and  that  in  his  will 
he  left  the  Orphan  Homes  in  which  he  was  in- 
terested and  other  buildings,  together  with  all 
the  land  and  negroes  he  had  acquired,  to  the 
Countess  of  Huntingdon  for  the  same  purpose 
as  that  for  which  he  himself  held  them.*  Writing, 
too,  in  1751,  Whitefield  says,  "  as  to  the  lawfulness 
of  keeping  slaves  I  have  no  doubt."  "  It  is  plain 
to  a  demonstration  that  hot  countries  cannot 
be  cultivated  without  negroes."  Of  course,  the 
slaves  Whitefield  possessed  were  negroes,  and  he 
would  never  have  dreamt  of  trafficking  in  white 
men ;  but  if  it  took  intelligent  and  earnest  Chris- 
tians so  many  centuries  to  get  beyond  the  colour 
line  and  to  see  the  iniquities  of  slavery  quite 
apart  from  any  question  as  to  whether  its  victims 
were  white  or  black,  we  need  not  be  surprised  that 
the  first  generations  of  Christians  did  not  see  all 
at  once  everything  that  is  implied  in  the  gospel, 
or  that  even  ecclesiastical  officials  and  communi- 
ties were  for  a  while  owners  of  slaves.  It  is 
probable,  indeed,  that  very  early  in  the  Christian 
Church  a  distinction  arose  very  much  analogous 
to  the  more  modern  distinction  which  was  made 
as  to  colour.  The  first  concrete  step  taken  towards 
the  assertion  of  the  right  of  all  men  to  be  free  was 
that  freedom  was  claimed  for  all  Christian  slaves 
on  the  twofold  ground  of  their  baptism  and  that 
it  was  shameful  that  the  brethren  of  Christ  should 
be  in  bondage.  Perhaps  at  first  the  claim  was 
even  more   limited  than  that,  and  was   that  the 

*  That  the  biographer  of  the  great  evangeUst  refuses  to  try 
to  discover  excuses  for  this  act,  which  he  describes  as  odious, 
just  shows  how  far  we  have  travelled  since  1747. 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE  79 

distinction  between  bond  and  free  should  be  held 
as  cancelled  within  the  redeemed  society  of  the 
Church ;  that  it  was  iniquitous  that  Christians 
should  be  in  slavery  to  fellow  Christians.  But 
such  a  claim  could  not  but  widen,  and  widen  it 
soon  did.  It  had  all  emancipation  in  its  sweep, 
since  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  consequent 
brotherhood  of  men  in  Christ  is  of  universal 
application.  And  just  because  the  source  and 
basis  of  this  claim  were  what  they  were,  it  could 
not  but  grow,  until  at  last  freedom  was  claimed 
not  only  for  the  Christian  slaves  of  Christian 
masters,  and  then  for  the  Christian  slaves  of  all 
masters,  but  for  all  slaves  whatsoever.  But  it 
took  time  for  the  Christian  community  to  see 
that  what  was  claimed  for  some  must  ultimately 
be  claimed  for  all;  just  as  it  took  time  for 
the  later  generations  to  see  that  what  they 
claimed  for  white  men  must  also  be  claimed  for 
black,  and  as  it  will  yet  take  time  for  our  own 
advanced  and  advancing  age  to  apply  the  spirit 
of  Christ  and  His  gospel  all  round  the  circle  of 
our  life,  and  in  particular  to  every  phase  of  the 
labour  problem. 

In  claiming  that  this  silent  revolution  which  led 
to  a  new  attitude  to  slavery  and  a  new  conception 
of  the  moral  dignity  and  value  of  labour,  both  of 
which  spread  by  and  by  among  those  who  were 
not  actually  Christian,  was  due  to  the  gospel,  it  is 
not  in  any  way  suggested  that  there  were  no 
other  ameliorative  forces  at  work  even  in  the 
first  ages  of  our  era.  Economic  and  political 
forces  were  at  work  as  well  as  religious,  in  the 
direction  of  amelioration  if  not  of  actual  eman- 
cipation.    In  the  first  Christian  generations  long- 


80  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE 

continued  peace  throughout  the  Empire  had  led 
to  a  certain  softening  of  manners  which  in  some 
instances  produced  a  change  of  sentiment  regard- 
ing the  slave  class.  The  Imperial  diplomacy,  too, 
was  tending  in  the  same  direction.  Yet  even 
those  who  have  laid  most  emphasis  on  the  better 
tendencies  of  the  Imperial  period  have  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  while  latterly  there  was  a 
tendency  to  ameliorate  the  condition  of  the 
slaves  on  principles  of  general  humanity,  there 
was  no  hint  of  an  end  being  put  to  the  baneful 
system,  apart  from  Christianity.  To  use  a 
m.odern  distinction,  Christianity,  as  distinguished 
from  every  other  influence  at  work,  exercised  not 
merely  a  tendency  towards  emancipation  but  a 
tendency  to  produce  emancipation.*  And  this 
leads  to  a  difference  not  in  degree  merely  but 
in  kind — to  a  distinction  which  is  fundamental. 
With  no  desire  whatever  to  minimise  the  other 
ameliorative  forces  which  were  at  work  (for  God 
fulfils  Himself  in  many  ways)  alike  in  economics 
and  politics,  the  claim  must  be  insisted  on  that 
it  was  Christianity  which  did  the  enduring  work 
and  sowed  the  seed  out  of  which  the  tree  of  liberty 
has  grown  in  every  age  and  land.  It  alone  of  all 
the  influences  at  work  was  whole-hearted  in  its 
determination  to  set  the  bondman  free,  and  it 
alone  had  the  energy  or  motive  power  which 
was  needed  to  realise  its  ideal  and  achieve  its 
purpose.  The  lamentation  of  those  who  had 
merely  the  "  tendency  towards  emancipation " 
ever  was  that  their  well-meant  efforts  only  seemed 
to  make  matters  worse  and  to  add  to  the  misery  of 

*  See  Westcott,    "Gospel   of  the  Resurrection,"  3rd  ed., 
p.  72. 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE  81 

the  enslaved.  The  open  secret  of  those  with  the 
"  tendency  to  produce  emancipation "  was  and  is 
the  gospel  of  grace  which  is  the  power  of  God  to 
every  one  that  believeth,  and  which  when  it 
enters  a  man's  life  renews  the  springs  of  his 
being.  Christianity  is  not  merely  a  life,  as  has 
been  so  often  and  so  proudly  set  forth,  it  is  life, 
and  life  alone  can  overcome  the  mighty  enemies 
which  have  always  stood  in  the  pathway  of 
effective  reform  and  genuine  emancipation. 

Nor  is  even  that  all  the  difference  between 
the  Christian  attitude  to  slavery  and  that  of  the 
most  enlightened  paganism.  By  the  time  the 
gospel  had  had  a  century  or  so  to  make  its 
influence  felt,  the  record  shows  that  the  best  of 
the  Stoics  were  in  practical  agreement  with 
Christianity  that  slavery  might  be  treated  as 
non-essential  in  the  realm  of  religion  and  ignored 
by  the  moral  man  in  his  quest  after  the  highest 
good.  But  whereas  the  Christians  were  filled  with 
sympathy  for  the  slaves,  the  Stoics  at  their  best 
had  nothing  but  indifference  and  even  contempt 
for  them.  The  very  likeness  between  the  two 
attitudes  only  serves  to  bring  their  essential  un- 
likeness  into  bolder  relief.  The  Stoics  and  the 
Christians  were  not  moving  on  the  same  plane, 
they  were  not  living  in  the  same  world.  A  new 
pity  had  been  born  in  the  hearts  of  those  whom 
Christ  had  brought  in  from  the  wilds  of 
heathenism,  as  they  realised  something  of  what 
the  great  pity  of  God  had  done  for  them  in 
Christ ;  and  this  new  and  Divine  compassion 
which  filled  their  eyes  with  the  love-light  and 
made  their  lips  tremulous  with  sympathy  was 
very  fruitful  in  effort  and  good  deeds.     Whatever 

Christianity  and  Labour.  7 


82  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE 

the  early  Church,  battling  as  it  was  for  existence 
and  beset  with  overwhelming  foes,  could  do  for 
the  oppressed  was  done  and  undeniably  well  done, 
until  a  new  atmosphere  was  created,  not  only  for 
the  Christians,  but  to  some  extent  for  the  pagans 
as  well.  That  this  leavening  process  was  always 
going  on,  even  in  the  midst  of  persecution,  can  be 
seen  by  the  way  in  which  the  influence  of  the 
Church  manifested  itself  at  once  when  the  Empire 
became  officially  Christian.  The  essential  antago- 
nism between  the  gospel  and  the  iniquitous 
system  became  open  and  manifest  then,  but  the 
nature  of  it  showed  that  it  had  existed  as  truly  in 
other  phases  during  the  preceding  period  when  it 
could  not  operate  openly.  In  Constantine's  reign 
one  enactment  after  another  appeared  which  made 
for  reform  ;  and  each  of  these  achieved  something 
more  definite  than  its  predecessor  by  way  of 
ameliorating  the  condition  of  the  slaves.  Then 
as  before,  however,  the  Christian  writers  and 
thinkers  alone  had  a  true  appreciation  of  the 
social  problems  of  their  time  and  how  they  could 
be  solved;  and  the  years  312,  314,  316,  321,  and 
322  have  each  their  note  of  progress.  And  if  the 
frequency  of  the  interference  suggests  how  evil 
the  state  of  affairs  must  have  been,  it  also  tells 
how  great  and  urgent  was  the  desire  to  amend  it. 
Laws  were  passed  making  it  homicide  to  poison 
a  slave,  and  providing  that  even  sixty  years  of 
bondage  could  not  deprive  any  one  who  had  been 
freeborn  of  the  right  to  demand  their  liberty,  and 
securing  the  rest  of  the  Sabbath  for  the  labourer.* 

*  The  influence  of  the  Christian  Sabbath  on  behalf  of 
labour  has  been  great.  In  321  Oonstantine  appointed  Sunday 
as  a  rest  day  for  all  artificers ;  a  provision,  however,  which 


THE   LABOURER  AS  A   SLAVE  83 

Manumission,  too,  was  encouraged,  while  at  the 
same  time  new  barriers  were  put  in  the  way  of 
dragging  those  who  were  free  down  to  slavery. 
The  forces  which  tended  to  produce  emancipation 
were  everywhere  at  work,  and  were  everywhere 
showing  how  truly  they  were  of  God  by  what 
they  were  accomplishing  in  the  face  of  vast 
opposition. 

For  many  centuries,  however,  although  the 
death-warrant  of  slavery  had  been  signed  long 
before,  no  unequivocal  word  of  thoroughgoing 
condemnation  seems  to  have  been  uttered  either 
by  Church  or  State.  Yet  many  deeds  were  being 
done  which  were  even  better  than  words,  valuable 
as  some  frank  words  of  detestation  would  have 
been.  Very  early  we  read  of  slaves  who  had 
been  set  free  being  presented  for  baptism  by  their 
former  masters,  and  of  churches  being  made 
asylums  where  hunted  slaves  might  find  refuge 
until  the  ministers  of  Christ  could  plead  for  them. 
Gradually  too,  but  surely,  like  the  rising  of  the 
sun,  the  idea  took  possession  of  believers  that 
baptism  should  involve  freedom.  In  the  earlier 
centuries  of  expansion  the  reports  of  many  Church 
Councils  tell  of  resolutions  which  were  passed  in 
favour    of    better    treatment   of    slaves ;    and  at 


did  not  apply  to  those  who  worked  on  the  land.  In  the 
Apostolical  Constitutions  (Book  8,  Sec.  4,  Par.  33),  it  is  pro- 
vided, "  Let  the  slaves  work  five  days,  but  on  the  Sabbath 
and  the  Lord's  Day  let  them  have  leisure  to  go  to  chiu-ch 
for  instruction  in  piety."  In  558  Clotaire,  King  of  France, 
forbade  aU  servile  laboiu«  on  the  Lord's  day.  So  in  England 
alike  under  the  Saxons  and  tmder  the  early  Normans  the 
rest  day  was  secured  by  Christianity  for  the  bondmen,  and 
a  marvellous  boon  it  must  have  been. 


84  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE 

length  explicit  condemnation  of  the  whole  system 
came  from  outstanding  Christians  if  not  from  the 
Church  Courts.  Pope  Gregory  the  Great  was  still 
far  in  advance  of  his  age  when  he  taught  towards 
the  end  of  the  sixth  century  "  that  slaves  should  be 
freed  because  Christ  became  man  in  order  to 
redeem  us,"  but  it  was  a  great  emancipating 
thought.  In  the  ninth  century  we  find  that 
St.  Theodore  of  Studium  had  the  originality  and 
courage  to  issue  the  injunction,  "  thou  shalt  possess 
no  slave  either  for  domestic  service  or  for  the 
labour  of  the  fields,"  and  the  reason  given  for  this 
injunction  was  even  more  significant  than  the 
injunction  itself,  so  much  of  promise  did  it  involve 
for  the  days  to  come.  Christian  men  were  not  to 
keep  slaves  because  "  man  is  made  in  the  image  of 
God."  Nothing  could  prove  more  clearly  how  great 
was  the  progress  which  had  been  made  during 
these  silent  centuries  and  what  the  lines  were  along 
which  it  had  been  made,  even  if  it  also  suggests 
how  slow  the  advance  had  been.  It  lets  us  see 
how  men's  minds  were  being  led  under  the 
guidance  of  hearts  which  had  been  renewed  by 
Divine  grace,  and  eyes  with  the  new  light  of  the 
gospel  in  them.  It  provides  us,  too,  with  an 
object-lesson  in  the  way  in  which  the  gospel 
does  its  most  enduring  work.  Instead  of  denounc- 
ing the  evil  in  words  which  have  been  unmeaning 
for  most,  until  men  were  able  to  hear  them,  it 
gradually  created  an  atmosphere  in  which  slavery 
could  no  longer  exist.*      "  Man  is    made   in  the 

*  For  details  see  Wallon,  "  Histoire  de  I'Esclavage."  Like 
so  much  else  that  is  best  in  our  modern  life,  freedom  for  the 
slave  was  foolishness  to  the  philosophers  and  a  stimabling- 
block  to  the  theologians  before  it  justified  itself ;  but  it  was 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE  85 

image  of  God  "  sounded  the  death-knell  of  slavery 
wherever  it  was  understood,  and  just  in  propor- 
tion as  it  was  understood  in  these  early  ages 
shackles  were  broken  and  the  work  of  liberation 
advanced.  Not  only  so,  but  just  in  proportion  as 
it  is  understood  in  our  time  will  the  evils  akin  to 
slavery  which  still  exist  gradually  disappear  as 
slavery  did.  Four  centuries  after  St.  Theodore's 
time  Pope  Clement  IV.  used  the  same  argument 
against  the  serfdom  into  which  by  his  time  slavery 
had  gradually  passed.  "  All  men,"  said  he,  "  have 
the  same  origin ;  they  live  under  the  same  sky. 
.  .  .  The  immense  difference  between  the  Creator 
and  the  creature  effaces  the  slight  distinction 
between  the  king  and  the  serf.  The  distinction 
of  birth  is  only  an  accident,  a  human  institu- 
tion. .  .  .  God  distributes  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit 
without  regard  to  the  division  of  classes.  In 
His  eyes  there  are  neither  nobles  nor  villeins." 
Slowly  but  surely  all  the  presumptions  both  in 
Church  and  State  came  to  be  in  favour  of  freedom 
for  all,  and  for  the  abolition  of  slavery.  The 
steady  drift  of  feeling  and  opinion  was  in  the 
direction  of  recognising  the  inestimable  value  of 
liberty.  The  new  leaven  showed  itself  in  many 
ways,  as,  for  example,  in  the  growth  of  the  opinion 
that  the  marriage  of  a  slave  in  the  Church  made 
him  ipso  facto  a  freeman.  That  was  a  great 
advance  on  the  old  law,  that  slaves  could  not 
enter  into  a  legal  union  at  all ;  and  as  late  as  the 
ninth  century  Basil's  enactment,  that  the  priestly 
benediction  should  hallow  the  marriage  of  slaves 
met  with  much  opposition.    And  all  through  the 

really  involved  in  the  religion  of  the  Christian  man  whenever 
he  saw  what  that  actually  meant. 


86  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE 

Christian  faith  was  ennobling  free  labour,  and 
leading  it  to  do  work  which  still  endures,  such  was 
the  heart  which  was  put  into  it ;  and  that  meant 
much  as  it  must  always  do.*  In  the  end,  indeed, 
it  meant  everything,  so  far  as  the  progress  of  the 
labourer  was  concerned.  Idle  parasites  became 
industrious  workers ;  marauding  bands  settled 
down  to  agriculture  and  the  various  trades  with- 
out any  longer  feeling  disgraced  thereby  ;  and  the 
reformation  which  was  thus  begun  has  never 
really  ceased  since,  and  never  can  cease  until  all 
men  everywhere  are  both  busy  and  free,  finding 
their  divine  calling  in  their  daily  work  and 
worshipping  God  therein.  There  have,  of  course, 
been  many  interruptions  in  the  progress,  as  when 
the  disappearance  of  slavery  was  delayed  by  the 
inroads  of  the  Barbarians  and  the  breaking  up  of 
the  Empire.  But  although  paganism  once  more 
proved  that  slavery  is  its  natural  and  necessary 
accompaniment,  and  the  evil  system  got  a  new 
lease  of  life,  the  captives  ere  long  led  their  captors 
into  captivity ;  and  even  this  cataclysm  proved  to 
be  no  more  than  a  temporary  interruption.  In 
the  very  midst  of  the  storm  the  good  work  went 
on,  and  then,  as  now,  the  gospel  regenerated  men 
and  nations  not  by  external  changes  but  by  renew- 
ing the  springs  of  life.  Most  emphatically  the 
kingdom  of  Christ  is  not  of  this  world,  and  social 
reform,  vast  as  it  is,  is  no  more  than  a  by-product, 

*  "Much  stress  was  commonly  laid  on  the  Christian  duty 
of  pursuing  some  labour  as  a  discipline  of  body  and  mind, 
even  apart  from  the  necessity  of  earning  a  living  "  (Cunning- 
ham, "  Growth  of  English  Industry  and  Commerce,"  p.  141. 
He  refers  to  Maitland's  "Dark  Ages,"  p.  160,  and  to 
Morison's  "Life  of  St.  Bernard,"  p.  18). 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE  87 

an  obiter  factum  of  the  Great  Deliverer.  The 
gospel  begins  in  the  heart  and  with  the  restora- 
tion of  true  personality,  and  then  it  gradually 
works  outwards,  modifying,  rectifying,  and  renew- 
ing everything  it  touches ;  and  the  outward 
changes  when  they  come  at  length  are  simply  the 
final  seals  of  its  success. 

Before  passing  from  this  branch  of  the  subject 
it  must  be  made  quite  clear  that,  historically 
viewed,  the  definite  advance  which  was  made  in 
these  early  ages  towards  liberty  for  all  did  not 
gather  so  much  round  any  actual  emancipation 
which  took  place,  either  on  the  larger  scale  or  the 
smaller,  as  round  the  gradual  process  by  which  the 
slave  became  a  serf.  Augustine  attributed  slavery 
to  the  Fall,  and  spoke  of  the  relation  of  master  and 
slave  as  a  part  of  family  government;  and  the 
real  hope  for  the  future  gathered  round  the 
mitigations  and  ameliorations  which  nowadays 
often  seem  so  trifling.  It  was  the  trend  of 
Christian  opinion  which  was  of  supreme  import- 
ance ;  and  it  is  not  always  easy  to  say  what  the 
trend  at  any  particular  point  was.  Gregory  the 
Great,  for  example,  might  seem  to  turn  the  edge 
of  Augustine's  position  by  teaching  that  since  the 
original  state  of  man  was  one  of  freedom,  those 
who  emancipated  bondmen  were  worthy  of  all 
praise ;  but  the  same  Gregory,  in  spite  of  his  great 
declaration  about  freedom  through  Christ,  pre- 
sented slaves  to  a  convent,  and  exerted  himself 
to  recover  a  fugitive  slave  who  belonged  to  his 
brother.  All  the  same,  the  movement  towards 
freedom  went  steadily  on  through  the  proclama- 
tion of  the  dignity  of  human  nature  as  made  in 
the  image  of  God,  of  the  equality   of  all  before 


88  THE   LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE 

Him,  and  of  the  yearning  of  Christ  that  all  should 
turn  to  Him  and  live.  And  just  as  the  true  line- 
age of  the  Reformers  is  not  to  be  found  in  sporadic 
movements  outside  the  mediaeval  Church,  but  in 
the  faithful  men  and  women  within,  who  kept  the 
fire  burning  on  the  altar  even  in  the  darkest  days, 
so  the  true  line  of  the  social  revolution  which  has 
not  yet  come  to  an  end  is  not  to  be  found  in  any 
particular  legislation  or  manumissions  as  much 
as  in  the  general  movement  by  means  of  which 
the  entire  level  was  permanently  raised.  It  is 
there  we  must  find  any  promise  or  potency  for  the 
days  to  come.  Not  that  we  are  at  liberty  to 
belittle  the  service  rendered  to  the  holy  cause  of 
freedom  by  those  who  on  all  sorts  of  occasions 
and  for  all  sorts  of  reasons  actually  set  their  slaves 
free  ;  any  more  than  we  would  belittle  those  who 
are  called  Reformers  before  the  Reformation.  But, 
all  the  same,  the  enduring  work  was  done,  and  the 
work  that  counts,  by  those  who  helped  to  raise  the 
whole  tone  of  thought  and  action  with  regard  to 
labour  and  in  regard  to  the  toiling  masses,  and 
begot  new  hope  in  these  masses  themselves.  And 
for  us  to-day  the  thing  which  is  of  supreme 
significance  is  how  this  work  was  done.  "There 
is  no  method  of  reformation  so  powerful  as  this," 
wrote  the  late  Duke  of  Argyll,  "  if  alongside  any 
false  or  corrupt  belief  or  any  vicious  or  cruel 
system  we  can  succeed  in  planting  one  incompat- 
ible idea  ;  thus  without  noise  or  controversy  or 
clash  of  battle  those  beliefs  or  customs  will  wane 
and  die.  It  was  thus  that  Christianity  without  a 
single  word  of  direct  attack  killed  off  one  of  the 
greatest  and  most  universal  curses  of  the  pagan 
world — the  ever-deepening  curse  of  slavery." 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE  89 

That,  then,  was  the  method  and  that  was  the 
grand  result.  When  we  enter  on  the  history  of  the 
Middle  Ages  it  is  no  longer  slavery  but  serfdom 
which  confronts  us.  We  have  no  longer  slavery 
in  which  the  owner,  as  capitalist,  owns  the 
labourer,  but  feudalism,  in  which  the  capitalist 
owns  the  land  and  has  a  lien  on  the  labourer  ;  and 
the  manner  in  which  the  change  was  brought 
about  is  even  more  important  and  significant  for 
us  than  the  change  itself.  Along  with  economic 
and  political  causes  which  were  also  at  work,  or, 
better,  through  economic  and  political  causes,  it 
was  brought  about  by  the  influence  of  Christian 
truth  and  by  the  power  of  the  gospel  of  Christ ; 
and  it  is  thus  and  thus  only  that  the  kingdom  of 
God  can  come  in  our  time.  It  is  no  more  possible 
to  disentangle  the  influence  of  Christianity  from 
the  other  forces  which  were  at  work  in  the 
early  centuries  of  our  era  than  it  is  possible  to 
disentangle  it  in  our  time  from  the  other  ameliora- 
tive agencies  which  are  making  all  things  new.  A 
steamer  may  be  aided  in  its  voyage  by  the  tide 
and  the  wind  as  well  as  by  its  engines,  and  it  may 
not  be  possible  to  tell  how  much  of  the  resultant 
speed  is  due  to  each,  although  we  know  that  at 
best  the  other  forces  are  only  auxiliary  to  the 
steam.  Yet  society  in  that  far  past  was  less 
complex  than  it  is  now,  and  it  is  even  easier  to  see 
how  the  gospel  made  for  freedom  then  than  it  is 
to  see  that  now,  when  even  its  assailants  use  the 
Christian  vocabulary  and  have  adopted  its  ideas. 
We  can  study  these  earlier  ages,  too,  without  bias  ; 
and  to  see,  as  we  have  seen,  that  it  was  Christianity 
which,  directly  and  indirectly,  brought  about 
reform  and  emancipation  then  is  a  strong  argu- 


90  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SLAVE 

ment  in  favour  of  the  claim  which  is  not  without 
other  support,  that  it  is  Christianity  which  has 
always  brought  about  reform  and  amelioration, 
and  that  it  is  to  it  we  must  look  for  the  perfection 
of  the  work  of  liberation,  and  for  the  time  when 
there  shall  be  nothing  to  hurt  or  destroy  in  all 
God's  Holy  Mount.  That  Christianity  as  we  know 
it  is  too  much  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of 
thought  and  has  lost  something  of  its  abandon  and 
infectious  joy  is  only  too  true ;  but  the  revival  of 
faith  in  its  power  to  save  to  the  uttermost  and  to 
solve  every  problem,  a  faith  which  is  so  amply 
justified  by  a  study  of  the  facts,  would  sweep  all 
that  away  like  mist  before  the  rising  sun. 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF 


I 


CHAPTER    III 

THE  LABOURER  AS   A  SERF 

IT  is  not  possible  to  say  exactly  when  slavery 
ceased  and  serfdom  began  to  take  its  place, 
but  that  arises  from  the  nature  of  the  case.  The 
point  of  transition  was  nowhere  very  definite,  and 
as  may  be  imagined  it  varied  alike  in  time  and 
manner  in  the  different  countries.  Froissart,  for 
example,  who  spent  six  months  in  Scotland  in 
the  reign  of  David  II.,  was  greatly  impressed  by 
the  fact  that  the  Scottish  peasants  were  not  as 
the  peasants  of  France.  They  were  not  abject 
in  spirit  as  the  others  were,  although  their  mode 
of  living  was  very  humble,  and  when  the  French 
knights  after  their  manner  rode  carelessly  through 
their  crops,  they  signified  their  disapproval  with 
such  emphasis  that  the  strangers  were  eager  to 
depart.  As  for  England,  Lecky  says  that  slaves 
were  very  rare  there  in  the  twelfth  century  and 
almost  unknown  in  the  thirteenth.  But  it  is 
probable  that  the  transition  really  took  place 
earlier  than  that.  It  is  even  probable  that,  as 
is  often  the  case  in  such  references,  Lecky  in  that 
statement  employs  the  term  slavery  in  its  more 
comprehensive  use  as  including  what  is  now 
specifically  meant   by  serfdom,   for  by  that   date 

93 


94  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF 

in  England  even  serfdom  was  beginning  in  turn 
to  be  modified  into  something  more  favourable 
to  the  labourer,  and  with  new  promise  in  it  for 
the  future. 

For  just  as  it  is  not  possible  to  say  when  slavery 
began  to  assume  the  milder  form  of  serfdom  any 
more  than  it  is  possible  to  say  exactly  when  the 
morning  light  begins  to  break  after  the  darkness 
of  the  night,  it  is  not  always  easy  to  say  exactly 
wherein  the  difference  between  slavery  and 
serfdom  lay.  Sometimes  the  terms  slave  and 
serf  are  practically  synonymous;*  and  just  as  an 
anti-slavery  orator  from  the  United  States  once 
found  in  an  English  town  that  his  description 
of  the  food  of  a  negro  slave  did  not  rouse  his 
audience  as  he  expected,  some  serfs  may  have 
been  worse  off  both  as  regards  food  and  shelter 
than  some  slaves  had  been.  The  American 
lecturer  found  that  the  rations  which  he  had 
denounced  were  more  liberal  than  those  of  some 
of  his  hearers,  and  in  the  same  way  many  a 
serf  must  have  paid  for  his  new  freedom,  or 
comparative  freedom,  in  new  hardships  and  priva- 
tions. So  Dr.  Menger  and  others  say  that  vast 
multitudes  in  the  twentieth  century  are  in  no 
way  better  off — they  may  be  worse  off— than  the 
slave  or  feudal  vassal,  f  Yet  the  difference  in 
the  possibilities  of  the  two  relationships  was 
infinite,   and    the   step   taken    in    the    history  of 

*  As  when  Mr.  Green  says  on  p.  238  of  his  "  Short 
History,"  "The  slave,  indeed,  still  remained,  though  the 
number  of  pure  '  serfs '  bore  a  small  proportion  to  the  other 
cultivators  of  the  soil." 

+  See  Miss  Stoddart's  "The  New  Socialism,"  p.  34,  a 
learned  and  lucid  exposition  of  Socialism  as  it  now  is. 


THE   LABOURER  AS  A  SERF  95 

labour  was  unspeakably  great  when  the  person- 
ally owned  slave,  who  could  be  bought  or  sold 
hke  a  horse  or  a  cart  or  put  to  death  like  a  sheep, 
became  a  serf  who  was  bound  to  the  soil,  rather 
than  to  the  owner  of  the  soil,  and  changed  hands 
only  when  the  land  on  which  he  lived  and 
laboured  was  changing  hands.  It  told  that  the 
light  was  breaking  at  last,  that  a  new  day  had 
begun,  and  that  the  curse  was  lifting;  that  men 
were  now  breathing  a  different  atmosphere,  and 
that  old  things  were  passing  away  and  all  things 
becoming  new.  Christianity,  as  we  have  seen, 
had  effected  improvements  even  in  the  condition 
of  the  slave.  The  power  of  the  owner  had 
gradually  been  defined  and  limited  by  the  law 
of  the  Empire,  and  it  meant  much  that  slaves 
had  gradually  acquired  some  rights  before  the 
law.  It  meant,  for  one  thing,  that  the  law  had 
come  to  recognise  their  existence,  that  the  moral 
energy  born  of  the  life  and  teaching  of  Christ 
was  getting  down  to  the  lowest  depths,  and  that 
His  hght  was  shining  even  into  the  sunless  gulfs 
where  the  slaves  lay  in  dumb  despair.  But  the 
change  from  slavery  to  serfdom  had  in  it  the 
promise  of  changes  vastly  greater  which  were 
still  to  come.  In  order  to  set  slaves  free  a  formal 
manumission  or  emancipation  was  required, 
whereas  all  that  was  needed  in  order  to  set  serfs 
free  was  the  growth  of  a  public  opinion  which 
rendered  it  more  and  more  impossible  to  enforce 
a  claim  of  ownership,  as  if  there  could  be  property 
in  human  beings,  and  which  finally  made  such 
a  claim  altogether  impossible.  It  was  thus  that 
the  next  great  step  was  taken  and  the  serf  became 
a  free  servant  very  much  in  the  same  way  and 


96  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF 

under  the  inspiration  and  guidance  of  the  same 
influences  as  the  slave  became  a  serf.  Slaves 
passed  along  the  highway  to  freedom  by  way  of 
serfdom,  for  the  most  part  without  observation 
and  certainly  without  revolution,  and  thus  they 
ultimately  became  free  labourers,  as  they  could 
not  have  become  directly  from  slavery.  It  is 
in  this  fact  that  the  special  significance  of  the 
serf  stage,  in  the  evolution  of  the  labourer,  is 
to  be  found ;  and  it  must  not  therefore  be  treated 
as  if  it  were  just  the  slave  stage  under  a  modified 
form.  It  has  a  place  all  its  own  in  any  inquiry  as 
to  how  we  have  travelled  so  far  as  we  have  done 
towards  the  social  millennium,  and  how  we  may 
travel  all  the  way. 

Speaking  of  English  serfdom,  or  villeinage  as 
it  was  called,  Hallam  has  pointed  out  that  it  was 
perfectly  relative,  and  formed  no  distinct  order 
in  political  economy  as  slavery  had  done.  No 
man  was  a  villein  in  the  eyes  of  the  law  unless 
some  master  claimed  him  as  such.  To  all  others 
he  was  a  freeman  who  might  acquire  property 
and  sue  for  it  or  dispose  of  it  without  impediment. 
Whether,  therefore,  the  difference  between  the 
slave  and  the  serf  lends  itself  to  exact  definition 
or  not,  it  had  in  it  the  promise  and  potency  of 
a  new  world.  Whether  or  not  the  serf  was  always 
as  well  fed  or  clothed  as  the  slave  had  been,  he 
was  a  man,  in  a  sense  in  which  no  slave  had  been, 
and  that  was  a  fact  full  of  hope  for  the  days 
to  come.  Unless  this  relativity  of  the  new 
relation  be  kept  in  mind  the  importance  of  the 
serf  in  the  evolution  of  the  free  labourer  who 
is  also  a  voter  and  citizen  cannot  be  understood. 
Trivial  as  the  step  taken  when  the  slave  became 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF  97 

a  serf  may  sometimes  appear  to  have  been,  it 
was  in  reality  the  biggest  step  ever  taken  in  the 
history  of  the  labourer,  and  involved  the  other 
steps  which  have  been  taken  since,  or  are  yet 
to  be  taken.  The  slave  had  no  hope  of  ever 
working  his  way  to  freedom,  nor  had  he  any 
share  in  the  fruit  of  his  labour.  He  was  a  chattel 
and  not  a  man.  The  villein,  however,  at  least 
in  the  later  stages  of  serfdom,  owed  his  lord 
a  certain  fixed  tribute  in  return  for  protection, 
and  after  this  debt  had  been  discharged  he  could 
work  for  himself  and  by  thrift  might  succeed 
in  purchasing  his  freedom.  He  had  thus  a  sort 
of  residuary  interest  in  his  own  life  and  labour, 
and  to  that  extent,  hard  as  his  lot  often  was,  it 
was  not  quite  so  forlorn  as  that  of  the  slave. 

Thus  was  the  gap  between  the  slave  and 
the  servant  filled  up  bit  by  bit  through  the 
progress  of  the  serf.  In  the  time  of  the  Saxons 
slaves  were  regarded  as  the  stock  of  their  owner 
who  had  to  answer  for  any  offence  they  might 
commit  against  a  third  person,  just  as  he  might 
answer  for  any  mischief  done  by  his  cattle.  That 
was  doubtless  the  case  then  in  Scotland  as  w^ell, 
and  Malcolm  Canmore's  devastations  on  the  North- 
umbrian borders  are  said  to  have  filled  the  hamlets 
of  the  Lothians  with  slaves.  By  the  time  of 
Alexander  III.,  however,  we  find  that  the  lowest 
social  order  in  Scotland  no  longer  consisted  of 
slaves,  but  of  serfs  who  were  bought  or  sold  with 
the  land  on  which  they  dwelt,  and  were  forbidden 
under  pain  of  death  to  remove  from  the  place 
of  their  birth.  In  Norman  England,  too,  we  no 
longer  find  slaves,  but  serfs,  who  had  not  only 
some  place  before    the    law,  but  had  a    remedy 

Christianity  and  Labour.  8 


98  THE   LABOURER  AS  A  SERF 

at  law  against  the  violence  of  their  masters  and 
a  tribunal  for  their  wrongs.  Under  favourable 
circumstances  they  might  even  purchase  their  own 
freedom  or  that  of  their  children  out  of  their 
earnings,  so  far  had  the  labourer  already  travelled 
from  the  time  when  no  bondman  could  hold 
property  of  any  kind  as  against  his  master. 

Not  only  so,  but  the  growth  of  towns  was 
proving  to  be  a  new  and  fruitful  factor  in  the 
situation.  The  inhabitants  of  these  towns,  which 
were  the  nurseries  of  freedom,  were  freemen ;  and 
residence  for  a  year  and  a  day  in  any  chartered 
town  in  England  barred  for  ever  any  right  w^hich 
an  owner  might  have  had  over  a  serf.  As  for 
Scotland,  the  condition  of  affairs  there  improved 
so  steadily  that  in  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth 
century  it  w^as  deemed  necessary  to  decree  among 
other  sumptuary  laws  that  "  no  labourer  or 
husbandman  wear  on  workdays  other  than  grey 
or  white ;  and  on  holidays  only  light  blue,  green, 
or  red ;  and  their  wives  the  same  w^ith  kerchiefs 
of  their  own  making,  and  that  it  exceed  not  the 
price  of  forty  pence  the  ell."  *  That  takes  us 
into  a  new  world  compared  with  slavery,  which 
had  no  promise  in  it  of  a  better  day  to  come, 
and  required  no  sumptuary  legislation.  And  so 
it  was  that  the  old  evil  state  of  things  could 
only  come  to  an  end  by  such  a  process  as  we  are 
now  tracing,  and  the  true  forces  which  made  for 
the  ultimate  emancipation  were  those  which  thus 
made  the  slave  a  serf,  since  it  was  in  that  way 
alone  that  the  whole  body  of  the  workers  could 

*  The  last  claim  of  serfdom  proved  in  a  Scottish  court  was 
in  1364  (Barnett  Smith,  "History  of  the  English  Parlia- 
ment," vol.  ii.  p.  128). 


THE   LABOURER  AS  A  SERF  99 

be  lifted  up  to  a  new  economic  level.  Slavery 
was  a  system  calculated  to  endure  as  long  as 
certain  social  conditions  endured ;  and  even  the 
philanthropists  of  the  Empire  never  contemplated 
its  final  and  complete  disappearance.  Important, 
too,  as  was  the  work  of  the  gospel  in  the  early 
ages,  as  it  led  to  actual  emancipation  for  many 
slaves  and  better  conditions  for  all,  its  greatest 
service  was  rendered  in  the  gradual  leavening 
of  society  by  the  new  moral  energy  which  it 
engendered  and  the  new  spiritual  conceptions 
which  it  everywhere  spread,  and  which  led  to 
the  inevitable  transition  from  slavery  to  serfdom. 
For  of  necessity  the  new  relation  of  serfdom, 
when  once  it  was  attained,  was  temporary  and 
transitional  in  a  Christian  State,  as  slavery, 
essentially  pagan  as  it  was,  had  not  been;  a 
mere  stage  in  the  onward  march  which  was 
destined  to  lead  the  labourer  to  complete  per- 
sonal freedom  and  to  all  that  such  freedom 
should   bring.* 

In  endeavouring  to  see  how  this  pregnant 
change  came  about,  and  in  particular  in  seeking 
to  show  how  Christianity  did  most  to  bring  it 
about  by  means  of  its  moral  and  spiritual  ideals 
— ever  growing  for  those  who  had  the  eyes  to 
see  and  the  hearts  to  respond — and  above  all  else 
by    means    of    its    moral    and    spiritual     energy, 

*  There  are  those  who  blame  the  mediaeval  Church  for  the 
universal  serfdom  of  the  Middle  Ages,  but  this  was  mainly 
due  to  the  introduction  of  the  Roman  Law  into  the  Germanic 
lands.  That  law  did  not  provide  for  such  a  class  as  free 
peasants,  and  worked  against  such  a  class  by  treating  them 
all  as  servi.  Wallon  says  that  the  enslaving  provisions  were 
generally  modified  on  ecclesiastical  lands. 


100  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF 

there  is,  of  course,  no  suggestion  that  in  this  era, 
any  more  than  in  the  preceding  ages,  Christianity 
was  the  only  ameliorative  force  at  work.  There 
were  other  social  and  economic  influences  of  the 
most  important  and  influential  sort,  although 
even  in  that  connection  it  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  the  gospel  does  not  do  its  best  work 
as  a  thing  apart,  and  that  it  is  just  through 
such  forces  that  it  mostly  manifests  its  power. 
Whenever  our  analysis  is  sufficiently  profound 
it  usually  transpires  that  the  gospel  not  only 
manifests  its  spirit  mainly  through  such  forces, 
but  that  it  gives  them  their  being  and  influence. 
That  can  be  seen  in  this  connection  at  once 
when  we  find  that  foremost  among  the  ameliora- 
tive forces  then  at  work,  so  far  as  the  Empire 
at  any  rate  was  concerned,  was  the  long  era 
of  peace  which  was  brought  about  by  the 
all-embracing  dominion  of  Rome.  That  peace 
brought  the  slave  trade  practically  to  an  end  by 
drying  up  the  main  source  of  supply.  Early  in 
the  Christian  era  the  supply  of  captives  of  war, 
formerly  so  abundant  and  continuous,  began  to 
cease,  and  ere  long  could  no  longer  be  depended 
on  at  all.  Slave-markets,  as  a  consequence,  began 
also  to  disappear,  and  with  them  one  of  the 
most  degrading  and  disastrous  features  of  the 
whole  system  came  to  an  end.  An  immediate 
and  necessary  result  of  this  disappearance  of  the 
supplies  was  that  the  slaves  became  very  much  more 
valuable,  and  consequently  were  better  cared  for. 
Another  result,  and  an  important  one,  was  that 
changes  of  ownership  among  the  slaves  became 
fewer  and  fewer,  and  in  this  way  they  became 
more  and  more  firmly  attached  to  the  lands  on 


THE   LABOURER  AS  A  SERF  101 

which  they  worked  and  to  the  households  in 
which  they  served.  But  such  fixity  of  situation 
was  of  the  essence  of  the  new  serf  relationship 
which  we  are  tracing  as  contrasted  with  that  of 
the  slave,  and  must  have  done  much  to  prepare 
the  Avay  for  it,  and  therefore  for  ultimate  free- 
dom. Alongside  of  this,  and  at  the  very  heart  of 
it,  the  new  conceptions  of  Christ  were  steadily 
making  their  power  felt.  Labour  was  no  longer 
considered  to  be  dishonourable  after  the  old 
fashion ;  and  from  the  second  century  onwards 
the  effect  of  this  new  atmosphere,  combined  with 
the  diminished  supply  of  slaves,  can  be  clearly 
and  increasingly  seen.  The  ice  was  at  last  begin- 
ning to  melt,  and  the  rays  of  the  Sun  of  Righteous- 
ness were  ever  growing  stronger  as  the  Christian 
propaganda  was  everywhere  prosecuted. 

Another  of  these  contributory  influences,  eco- 
nomic and  social,  which  were  at  work  in  the 
Empire,  making  for  the  fixity  of  place  and 
situation  which  had  so  much  bound  up  with  it 
for  the  days  to  come,  was  the  system  of  hereditary 
fixity  of  tenure  or  profession  which  grew  up 
among  the  freemen  all  throughout  the  Empire. 
For  one  thing  this  helped  to  diminish  the  dis- 
tance between  the  free  labourer,  in  this  sense 
bound  to  his  trade,  and  the  slave,  now  more  than 
ever  bound  to  his  trade  and  the  place  of  his 
toil.  Not  that  the  change  among  the  freemen 
was  wholly  for  the  better ;  for  as  things  turned 
out  it  favoured  a  process  of  reaction  which  went 
on  alongside  of  the  progress  which  was  being  made. 
When  serfdom  took  the  place  of  slavery  it  seems 
in  many  cases  to  have  involved  the  free  labourer 
in  its    sweep   as   well   as    the    slave,    both    alike 


102  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF 

being  caught  in  the  bigger  net  in  respect  of 
their  fixity  of  trade  and  place.  It  was,  there- 
fore, a  case  of  levelling  down  as  well  as  of 
levelling  up  for  the  labouring  classes ;  a  com- 
plication which  had  an  instructive  parallel  when 
Roman  Law  was  introduced  into  the  Germanic 
countries.  That  law  worked,  it  may  be  un- 
intentionally, against  the  free  peasantry  since  it 
did  not  provide  for  such  a  class  but  treated  all 
such  as  servile.  The  earlier  reaction,  however, 
was  no  more  than  an  eddy  in  a  flowing  tide — 
a  tide  flowing  slowly  but  surely  towards  freedom 
for  all. 

There  was  yet  another  of  these  social  and 
economic  influences  which  must  be  co-related 
with  the  gospel  in  the  work  of  amelioration — 
the  system  which  grew  up  of  working  the  land 
by  means  of  labourers  who  were  described  as 
coloni.  That  also  made  for  the  same  fixity  out 
of  which  the  new  relation  of  serfdom  was  to 
grow.  These  coloni  were  personally  free  labourers, 
but  they  were  attached  to  the  soil  very  much  as 
the  serfs  in  the  Middle  Ages  were,  and  ultimately 
they  seem  to  have  formed  the  standard  for  the 
slave  class,  and  to  have  marked  the  level  to 
which  the  slaves  were  gradually  raised.  The 
classical  description  of  these  coloni  in  the  fourth 
century  would  serve  perfectly  as  a  description 
of  a  serf  nine  or  ten  centuries  later.  As  adscripti 
glebce,*  if  they  abandoned  their  holdings  they 
could  be  brought  back  and  punished.     They  were 

*  These  adscripti  glebce  were  under  an  obligation  to  per- 
form a  certain  amount  of  work  for  their  owners,  and  beyond 
that  they  might  amass  property  for  themselves  ;  a  definition 
which  might  suffice  also  for  the  later  English  villeins,  or  serfs. 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF  103 

not  free  to  marry  off  the  domain  on  which  they 
were  settled,  and  their  children  were  fixed  in  the 
same  status  as  themselves.  They  could  be  sub- 
jected to  corporal  chastisement  in  certain  circum- 
stances, and  could  even  be  put  in  chains  if  they 
persisted  in  attempts  to  escape.  Yet  they  could 
acquire  property  and  had  certain  legal  rights ; 
and  legal  remedies  were  provided  for  unjust 
demands  made  on  them  or  for  injuries  wrong- 
fully inflicted.  This,  of  course,  meant  a  condition 
vastly  superior  to  that  of  the  slaves,  and  it 
meant  much  in  the  evolution  of  freedom  for 
the  labourer  that  this  should  become  the  stan- 
dard for  servile  labour;  and  while  it  cannot  be 
asserted  that  slaves  were  everywhere  raised  to 
this  level  of  the  coloni,  the  economic  result  of 
this  new  relationship  was  that  it  opened  up  the 
way  to  serfdom  and  to  all  the  promise  which 
that  involved  for  the  future. 

One  other  stage  in  this  movement  by  which 
slaves  were  raised  to  the  higher  and  more  hopeful 
level  of  serfdom  is  marked  by  the  appearance  of 
of  a  class  who  were  called  quasi-coloni,  and  who, 
by  the  year  377  A.D.,  could  only  be  sold  if  the  land 
on  which  they  lived  and  worked  were  also  sold. 
And,  so  far  as  the  Empire  is  concerned,  when 
the  serf  begins  to  appear  on  the  scene  he 
represents  colonus,  quasi-colonus,  and  slave  alike ; 
and  probably  also  to  a  large  extent  many  of 
those  who  had  been  free  labourers.  The  meshes 
of  the  new  net  were  not  so  fine  as  those  of  the 
old,  but  the  net  itself  was  larger  and,  speaking 
in  general  terms,  it  may  be  said  that  just  as  the 
labourer  was  everywhere  a  slave  when  Christi- 
anity began  its  beneficent  work,  so  when  mediaeval 


104  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF 

Europe  began  to  take  shape  after  the  convulsions 
which  gathered  round  the  fall  of  the  Empire,  the 
labourer  was  everywhere  a  serf.  By  that  time 
the  new  relationship  was  practically  universal, 
but,  as  can  readily  be  understood,  there  were 
many  interruptions  in  the  process  by  which  it 
came  about  that  serfdom  was  as  universal  as 
slavery  had  been.  The  fearful  miseries  of  the 
days  of  the  later  Empire,  and  in  particular  the 
terrible  poverty  of  the  labouring  classes,  by 
whatever  name  they  were  called,  which  was  due  to 
the  utter  disregard  of  all  economic  considerations, 
greatly  hindered  anything  like  continuous  advance 
even  at  its  slowest.  A  historian  of  the  period 
makes  the  suggestive  remark  that  "the  Roman 
Law  tended  to  regard  serfs  as  slaves."  He  makes 
it,  it  is  true,  in  connection  with  the  later  mediaeval 
conflict  between  the  feudal  spirit  and  the  per- 
sistent influence  of  the  older  law  ;  but  it  indicates 
how  complicated  and  difficult  the  earlier  move- 
ment must  also  have  been,  and  how  long  it  must 
have  taken  to  get  anything  like  legal  recognition 
of  the  changes  which  had  been  slowly  but  surely 
taking  place  under  the  influence  of  moral  and 
economic  forces.  Just  as  the  peasants  in  the  later 
Middle  Ages  usually  found  that  the  law,  or  what 
passed  for  law,  was  in  the  hands  of  its  interested 
interpreters  and  on  the  side  of  the  oppressor, 
so  there  must  have  been  many  in  these  earlier 
ages  who  were  dragged  back  again,  in  the  name 
of  the  law,  into  the  depths  of  the  bondage  out  of 
which  they  had  been  gradually  rising.  Everything 
tells  against  the  man  w^ho  is  down,  and  the  slave 
would  have  few  friends  as  against  the  law,  which 
had  not  yet  risen  to  the  conception  of  a  free  peas- 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF  105 

antry  and  had  been  made  in  times  when  the  slave 
had  no  existence  in  the  eyes  of  the  legislature. 

In  the  later  Middle  Ages,  when  it  was  no 
longer  slavery  which  was  being  left  behind  but 
serfdom  in  its  turn,  much  of  the  bitterness  of  the 
conflict  and  of  the  fierce  hatred  which  existed 
between  the  labourers  and  their  lords  was  due 
to  the  dexterous  manipulation  of  the  old  Roman 
Law  in  the  interests  of  privilege  and  oppression. 
This  was  specially  true  in  Germany,  where  there 
was  no  strong  central  authority  such  as  the 
Crown  became  in  England.  There  was  no  limit 
to  the  ingenious  devices  by  which  the  serfs  were 
treated  as  if  they  were  still  slaves  and  the  free 
peasantry  as  if  they  were  serfs,  and  by  means 
of  which  they  were  deprived  of  the  benefits  of 
the  social  and  economic  changes  which  were 
taking  place,  and  preparing  for  the  Renaissance 
and  the  Reformation.  Tradition,  indeed,  asserts 
that  one  reason  why  Martin  Luther's  father  was 
so  enraged  and  indignant  at  his  student  son 
abandoning  his  intention  of  being  a  lawyer  was 
that  he  hoped  much  from  one  so  brilliant.  As 
the  son  of  a  peasant  and  likewise  a  great  lawyer 
he  could  have  taken  the  side  of  the  common  folks 
in  their  perennial  conflict  for  freedom  and  in 
their  unceasing  battle  against  legal  chicanery 
and  legalised  wrongs. 

When  history  begins  to  throw  light  on  the 
social  condition  of  Saxon  England  the  lowest 
classes  consisted  of  slaves  who  were  the  absolute 
property  of  their  owners  and  of  ceorls  who  were 
so  numerous  that  they  formed  nearly  one-half  of 
the  entire  population.  The  slave  population  was 
relatively  small,  forming  as  it  did  about  an  eleventh 


106  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF 

of  the  population,  or  some  twenty-five  thousand  in 
all ;  and  there  are  indications  that  their  lot  was 
quite  as  hard  in  practice  as  it  was  in  theory. 
It  is  probable  that  the  great  majority  of  them 
were  the  descendants  of  the  conquered  inhabi- 
tants of  the  land  whom  the  Saxons  had  found 
there  w^hen  they  took  possession.  To  these  others 
had  been  added  in  various  ways,  as,  for  example, 
those  who  had  been  enslaved  as  a  punishment 
for  their  crimes.  The  ceorls  were  in  much  the 
same  position  as  the  serfs  in  the  Empire,  being 
bound  to  the  land  which  they  cultivated.  When 
the  troubles  which  followed  the  Norman  Conquest 
had  so  far  spent  themselves  that  some  order  can 
be  seen,  various  changes  are  discernible.  The 
Saxon  slaves  had  disappeared  and  had  become 
the  Norman  villeins,  which  meant  on  the  whole 
that  some  progress  had  been  made.  It  is  probable, 
indeed,  that  just  as  in  the  Empire  there  was 
a  levelling  down  as  well  as  a  levelling  up,  and 
that  some  free  labourers  found  themselves 
degraded  to  being  serfs  at  the  time  when  the 
slaves  were  lifted  up  to  that  position,  so  in 
England  when  the  ceorls  rose  in  the  social  scale 
by  becoming  villeins,  there  were  some  who  had 
formerly  been  free  labourers  who  were  forced 
back  a  stage  and  were  also  made  villeins.  On  the 
other  hand,  however,  some  of  the  Saxon  ceorls 
seem  to  have  escaped  the  villein  stage  altogether, 
and  to  have  become  independent  freeholders, 
and,  according  to  Mr.  Hallam,  the  ancestors  of 
the  English  yeomanry,  to  whom  the  nation  has 
owed  so  much,  and  whose  disappearance  has  been 
so  much  deplored.  And,  as  has  been  indicated, 
there  was  much  economic  promise  in  the  relation- 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF  107 

ship  of  the  villein  or  serf,  inasmuch  as  he  was 
the  sure  precursor  of  the  free  labourer.  For 
every  one  but  his  master  he  was  a  freeman,  and 
had  a  definite  standing  in  the  eyes  of  the  law. 

This  promise,  however,  was  very  slow  in  being 
realised,  and  the  movement  by  which  the  villein 
actually  became  a  free  labourer  was  so  gradual 
that  as  it  was  when  the  slave  became  a  serf,  so 
it  was  when  the  serf  became  a  servant ;  it  is  not 
possible  to  say  "  lo,  here "  or  "  lo,  there,"  or  to 
tell  exactly  when  the  transition  took  place.  In 
this  case  also,  however,  important  as  it  would 
have  been  to  have  known  when  the  change  took 
place,  it  is  vastly  more  important  to  be  able  to 
tell  that  it  actually  occurred  and  with  what 
promise  it  came. 

The  development  was  naturally  much  more 
rapid  in  some  countries  than  in  others,  but  even 
in  England,  which  was  in  the  van  in  this  as  in 
so  much  else  that  has  blessed  mankind,  although 
serfdom  may  be  said  to  have  died  out  with  the 
fourteenth  century,  it  lingered  on  in  some  districts 
until  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Signifi- 
cantly enough,  the  most  definite  proof  we  have  of 
the  steady  progress  which  was  being  made  during 
these  silent  centuries  is  to  be  found  in  the  efforts 
which  were  put  forth  to  stem  the  tide.  In  the 
reign  of  Richard  II.,  for  example,  we  find  a  petition 
presented  to  Parliament  asking  that  villeins  should 
not  be  allowed  to  send  their  children  to  school 
in  order  to  fit  them  for  advancement  in  the 
Church  ;  *  a  prayer  which  reveals  that  many  were 
rising  out  of  their  semi-servile   condition  to  that 

*  See  Green's  "Short  History  of  the  English  People," 
p.   251. 


108  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF 

of  freedom  by  becoming  priests.  And  that  leads 
us  naturally  to  consider  what  it  is  our  main  busi- 
ness to  consider,  how  far  the  motive  power  for  the 
progress  which  was  being  made,  and  which  was 
calling  forth  the  protests  of  the  reactionaries,  was 
being  provided  by  Christianity  and  its  gospel.  It 
also  shows  that  we  may  enter  on  the  inquiry  with 
some  measure  of  assurance  that  it  was  Christ  who 
was  setting  the  captive  free,  since,  as  this  petition 
reminds  us,  the  Church  was  the  great  leveller  in 
these  darkest  days.  It  has  never  been  quite  true 
that  all  men  were  equal  either  before  the  law  or 
before  the  Church ;  but  it  has  always  been  truer 
of  the  Church  than  of  the  law.  Such  a  career,  for 
example,  as  that  of  Cardinal  Wolsey,  and  there 
were  many  such  all  through  the  Middle  Ages,  must 
have  meant  much,  more  perhaps  than  we  can  appre- 
ciate now  in  these  days  of  triumphant  democracy. 

To  take  a  butcher's  boy  and  set  him  among 
princes  and  kings  and  make  him  mightier  than  the 
mightiest  of  the  barons,  was  a  notable  achieve- 
ment when  pride  of  birth  was  almost  an  insanity 
and  caste  was  omnipotent  in  every  other  sphere. 
Not  only  was  it  an  extraordinary  object-lesson 
for  those  who  sat  in  the  seats  of  the  mighty, 
it  must  have  done  much  to  save  the  driven  and 
down-trodden  masses  from  despair  and  to  kindle 
the  fires  of  hope  and  ambition  in  many  an  eager 
young  heart.  And  it  was  of  the  very  essence  of 
the  gospel  that  the  essential  dignity  of  human 
nature  and  the  infinite  worth  of  man  as  man 
should  be  thus  emphasised  by  those  who  spoke 
in  its  name.  The  Rule  of  St.  Benedict,  dating 
from  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  '  century,  runs : 
"Let  not  one   of  gentle  birth  be  put  before  him 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF  109 

that  was  formerly  a  slave,  unless  some  other 
reasonable  cause  exists  for  it  .  .  .  because  whether 
bond  or  free,  we  are  all  one  in  Christ,  and  bear  an 
equal  rank  in  the  service  of  one  Lord  ;  for  with 
God  there  is  no  respecting  of  persons."  Amid  all 
their  preoccupations  and  prejudices  the  greatest 
ecclesiastics  were  teaching  that  it  was  not  the  law 
of  nature  but  the  law  of  nations  which  held  so 
many  in  bondage  for  whom  Christ  had  died,  and 
the  great  word  of  Pope  Clement  IV.,  already 
quoted,  that  the  distinction  of  birth  is  only  an 
accident,  and  that  in  the  sight  of  God  there  are 
neither  nobles  nor  villeins,  but  those  over  whom  He 
yearns,  embodied  a  truly  Christlike  thought  which 
could  not  but  bring  forth  good  fruit.  It  is,  of 
course,  once  more  undeniable  that  there  were  other 
social  and  economic  forces  at  work  tending  to 
make  even  villeinage  no  longer  possible,  and  that 
we  have  no  warrant  for  saying  that  its  abolition 
was  directly  due  to  the  action  of  Christianity 
alone.  But  it  is  nowise  a  Christian  interest  to 
deny  that  this  was  so,  for  God  fulfils  Himself  in 
many  w^ays,  and  the  gospel  works  along  many 
lines  and  in  company  with  many  allies.  Yet  the 
cautious  and  careful  pronouncement  of  one  who 
is  an  acknowledged  expert  and  authority  regard- 
ing this  transition  of  the  serf  into  a  servant  is 
that  "  the  most  powerful  influence  at  work  in 
bringing  about  the  change  was  the  slow  action 
of  religious  motives  on  the  conscience  of  the 
masters."  * 

*  "From  the  time  when  in  the  year  681  Wilfrid  eman- 
cipated the  serfs  at  Selsey  we  find  the  influence  of  the  Church 
working  in  this  direction.  It  was  not  only  that  the  Sunday 
and  festival  rest  made  the  lot  of  the  labourer  lighter ;  but 


110  THE  LABOURER  AS   A  SERF 

As  it  was  in  earlier  ages,  so  it  was  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  It  was  Christ  who  lifted  up  the  slave,  and  it 
was  the  same  royal,  gracious  hand  which  turned 
the  serf  into  a  free  servant.  And  if  at  times  w^e  are 
puzzled  to  explain  how  it  was  that  the  truths  of 
the  gospel  worked  so  slowly  either  in  ancient 
Rome  or  in  mediaeval  England,  it  must  be  borne 
in  mind  that  the  number  of  those  who  give  them- 
selves up  unreservedly  to  be  obedient  to  Christ 
has  never  been  very  large.  Not  only  so,  but  it 
is  as  learners  rather  than  as  critics  we  shall  most 
hopefully  trace  the  process  of  amelioration,  since 
in  all  probability  it  will  continue  on  the  same  lines, 
in  the  coming  days,  even  if  it  does  gain  momentum 
and  proceed  with  greatly  accelerated  speed.  The 
power  which  first  of  all  lifted  up  the  slaves 
and  then  delivered  the  serfs  is  the  only  power 
which  can  make  the  vast  masses  who  have  been 
brought  together  into  our  cities  and  towns  by 
modern  industrial  conditions,  free  in  reality  as 
well  as  in  name.  Its  operations  will  probably  be 
slow  and  indirect  still,  and  the  millennium  can  only 
come  quickly  if  the  nations  learn  to  look  in  the 

there  was  a  constant  pressure  exercised  in  the  direction  of 
emancipation''  (Cunningham,  "Growth  of  English  Industry 
and  Commerce,"  p.  156).  "Whatever  security  was  gained 
for  the  husbandman  and  the  plough,  for  the  weak  and  un- 
protected, was  gained  by  the  struggle  of  the  Church  to  main- 
tain the  Peace  of  God"  (E.  Semichon,  "La  Paix  et  la  TrSve 
de  Dieu."     Quoted  by  Cunningham,  p.  116). 

"Whatever  may  have  been  the  faults  and  excesses  of  the 
Church,  there  can  be  no  question  as  to  the  tendency  of  its 
doctrines  to  exalt  the  altruistic  ideal  ;  and  either  directly  or 
indirectly  to  raise  the  conduct  prescribed  by  it  to  the  highest 
level  of  human  reverence  it  has  ever  attained "  (B.  Kidd, 
"  Western  Civilization,"  pp.  152-153). 


THE   LABOURER  AS  A  SERF  111 

right  direction  for  inspiration  and  energy.     But  it 
is  much  to  know  where  they  ought  to  look. 

Away  back  in  the  time  of  Ethelbert  and  Canute 
there  were  laws  in  England  which  forbade  the  sale 
of  men  and  women  to  heathen  masters,  and  under 
the  influence  of  St.  Wulf stan,  aided  by  William  the 
Conqueror,  the  slave  trade,  the  principal  seat  of 
which  had  been  in  Bristol,  was  put  down  in  Saxon 
England.  Nor  after  a  time  was  it  otherwise  in 
Norman  England,  or  in  that  new  and  better 
England  which  was  neither  Saxon  nor  Norman, 
because  it  was  both.  Under  the  guidance  of  Chris- 
tian men  and  w^omen,  and  especially  under  the 
inspiration  of  Holy  Scripture,  the  nation  was  led 
to  see  that  "  to  buy  or  sell  one  for  whom  Christ 
had  died  "  was  a  grave  outrage  ;  and  gradually  the 
principle  was  extended  also  to  the  kindred  outrage 
of  keeping  Christ's  brethren  in  bondage  at  all.  In 
spite  of  all  her  superstition,  the  mediaeval  Church 
was  as  a  lighthouse  in  the  darkness,  and  even  if 
the  light  often  shone  in  a  strangely  fragmentary 
fashion,  it  did  shine.  She  not  only  denounced 
bondage  and  encouraged  manumission,  she  set  her 
own  bondservants  free  on  a  large  scale.*  Even 
where  they  were  not  actually  set  free  the  condition 
of  the  Church's  serfs  was  better  than  that  of  other 
serfs,  as  was  the  case  also  later  on  with  her 
vassals,  as  Sir  Walter  Scott  points  out  in  "The 
Monastery." 

*  It  has  been  suggested  that  the  great  monastic  orders  did 
not  emancipate  their  serfs  as  readily  as  they  might  have 
done  because,  ecclesiastic-like,  they  had  persuaded  them- 
selves that  they  could  not  alienate  corporate  property.  All 
authorities,  however,  are  agreed  that  they  made  steadily  for 
amelioration  and  for  ultimate  emancipation. 


112  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF 

It  was  everywhere  inculcated  from  her  altars 
that  to  set  one's  serfs  free  was  an  act  pleasing  to 
God ;  and  numerous  charters  and  epitaphs  all 
through  the  Middle  Ages  still  record  the  gift  of 
their  freedom  to  those  who  had  been  in  bondage, 
and  that  the  gift  was  made  for  the  benefit  of  the 
soul  of  the  donor  or  testator.  Then,  as  now,  the 
forces  which  made  for  the  perpetuation  of  the 
evil — selfishness  and  ignorance,  class  pride  and 
hatred  of  change — were  very  mighty ;  but  the  moral 
forces  and  the  economic  forces  which  were  likewise 
at  work  for  reformation  were  mightier  still ;  and 
in  spite  of  all  opposition  the  new  era  dawned  at 
length,  and  a  cubit  was  added  to  the  stature  of  the 
enfranchised  labourer.  An  English  writer  *  in 
the  year  1570,  in  no  way  partial  to  the  Church, 
says  that  at  that  time,  although  serfdom  was  still 
recognised  by  the  law,  there  were  only  a  few  serfs 
who  survived ;  and  he  argues  strongly  that  the 
vast  change  for  the  better  which  had  taken  place 
was  due  to  the  influence  of  the  Christian  religion ; 
and  while  from  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  where 
forces  so  subtle  and  so  silent  were  at  work,  it  is 
not  possible  to  give  either  chapter  or  verse  by  way 
of  proof,  it  is  not  open  to  doubt  that  that  was  a 
just  claim.  The  fact,  indeed,  that  this  far-reaching 
change  came  about  so  gradually  and  so  much  with- 
out observation  of  men  is  a  lesson  for  all  the  ages, 
our  own  among  the  rest.  Nations  may  be  born  in 
a  day ;  and  in  the  moral  realm  ideas  often  ripen 
more  in  one  glorious  hour  than  they  had  seemed 
to  do  in  long  years  before ;  but  the  teaching  of  the 
triumphs  of  the  past  is  that  it  takes  time,  yea,  much 

*  Sir  Thomas  Smith  as  quoted  by  Brace,   "  Gesta  Christi," 
p.  251, 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF  113 

time,  to  secure  the  recognition  and  the  application 
of  the  great  Divine  truths  which  alone  can  make 
all  things  new.  It  is  so  easy  to  see  it  all  after  it  has 
been  discovered  and  made  concrete  in  human 
institutions  and  actual  life  ;  but  for  those  who 
were  groping  for  the  light  and  doing  the  duty 
nearest  them,  it  was  a  great  step  to  take  at  the 
time,  to  pass  from  the  conviction  that  it  was 
shameful  to  traffic  in  or  ill-use  Christians,  since  they 
were  the  brethren  of  Christ,  to  the  conviction  that 
it  was  also  a  sin  to  keep  any  in  serfdom,  no  matter 
whether  they  were  Christians  or  not,  since  Christ 
had  died  for  them  and  God  had  made  them  in  His 
own  image.  But  by  and  by  even  that  long  step 
was  taken  and  serfdom  went  as  slavery  had  gone ; 
and  another  milestone  on  the  highway  of  perfect 
liberty  for  the  labourer  had  been  passed.  Another 
victory,  too,  had  been  won  over  darkness  by  the  light 
which  shines  from  Calvary  and  the  Cross  of  Christ.* 
Among  the  outstanding  social  and  economic 
influences  which  were  contributory  to  this  victory 
the  Crusades  and  the  ravages  of  the  Black  Death 
deserve  special  mention.  The  Crusades  did  much 
to  reveal  the  essential  equality  of  men ;  or  at  any 

*  Yet  although  the  light  broke  surely  it  spread  slowly. 
At  a  Council  at  Westminster  in  1102  it  was  declared 
unlawful  to  sell  slaves  openly  in  the  market  as  had  been 
the  custom  until  then.  In  Magna  Oharta,  however,  more 
than  a  century  later,  the  warden  of  an  heir  was  prohibited 
from  making  "destruction  or  waste  of  the  men  or  goods" 
upon  the  land  under  his  guardianship,  the  men  being  still 
classed  with  the  ordinary  chattels  ;  and  the  same  clause 
appears  in  later  charters  till  the  first  charter  of  Edward  I.  in 
1297.  But  probably  then,  as  now,  the  law  was  slow  to 
recognise  changes  which  had  actually  taken  place  and  the 
light  which  was  actually  shining. 

Chriatianity  and  Labour.  9 


114  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF 

rate  to  show  that  any  essential  differences  among 
them  lay  deeper  than  the  accident  of  birth.  Much 
of  the  glamour  of  the  mediaeval  knighthood  was 
lost  amid  the  disasters  which  haunted  these 
strange  expeditions ;  and  even  on  the  battlefield 
peasants  and  artisans  showed  that  they  were  as 
brave  as  those  whom  they  had  so  long  been  taught 
to  think  of  as  of  a  different  kind  of  flesh  and  blood. 
It  was  hardly  possible  for  those  who  had  shared 
in  the  common  dangers  and  privations  of  the 
march  and  the  battle  along  with  their  masters, 
and  had  seen  how  like  they  were  in  strength  and 
weakness  to  themselves,  to  go  back  to  the  old  life 
at  home  and  be  in  subjection  to  them  as  they  had 
been  before.  They  could  never  again  bow  as  they 
had  done  to  the  old  traditions  and  the  old 
prejudices.  In  Scotland,  William  Wallace,  the 
greatest  of  the  Scots,  seems  to  have  done  for 
the  common  folk  who  rallied  round  him  when 
the  high-born  w^ere  mainly  recusants  and  traitors, 
what  the  Crusades  did  for  their  brethren  in  the 
South.  The  working  man  got  a  new  sense  of  his 
importance  and  power.  Both  lords  and  labourers 
saw  that  patriotism  and  courage  were  not  the 
monopolies  of  any  class.  Carlyle  claimed  that  it 
was  under  John  Knox  that  the  Scottish  people 
began  to  live,  but  this  honour  belongs  to  Wallace 
rather  than  to  Knox ;  and  all  Europe  discovered 
what  the  inspiration  due  to  him  meant  when  at 
Courtrai  in  1320  some  twenty  thousand  Flemish 
artisans  defeated  a  much  more  numerous  army 
from  France,  although  it  was  largely  composed  of 
the  best  knights  of  the  age.  The  sting  of  that 
epoch-making  defeat,  one  of  the  really  decisive 
battles  of  history,  lay  in  the  fact  that  the  chivalry 


THE   LABOURER  AS  A  SERF  115 

of  France  fell  "  by  the  hands  of  villeins,  "  as  the 
Chronicler  sadly  laments.  Out  of  this  new  con- 
sciousness of  power  grew  the  hope  w^ithout  which 
nothing  worthy  or  enduring  could  have  been 
achieved  ;  and  out  of  the  efforts  which  this  hope 
inspired  a  freer  Europe  emerged.  The  era  of  the 
common  man  as  against  the  mail-clad  knight  had 
come,  and  in  a  very  real  sense  the  modern  move- 
ment had  begun.  The  brave  peasants  of  Wallace, 
just  emerging  from  serfdom,  were  the  forerunners 
of  the  famous  infantry  which  alike  for  the  con- 
flicts of  peace  and  those  of  war  has  never 
known  when  it  was  defeated,  and  has  never 
been  permanently  overcome. 

The  ravages  of  the  Black  Death  were  also 
closely  bound  up  with  the  labour  problem  in 
the  later  Middle  Ages.  So  many  died  of  the 
plague  that  everywhere  the  value  of  labour  was 
greatly  enhanced.  The  labourer,  too,  grew  in 
importance  in  presence  of  the  great  tracts  of 
land  which  lay  untilled  because  those  w^ho  had 
worked  them  were  now  numbered  with  the  dead. 
According  to  cautious  estimates  as  many  as 
eight  hundred  thousand  perished  in  England 
alone,  which  meant  about  one-third  of  the  popu- 
lation as  it  was  then.  The  plague  smote  the 
children  of  the  king  equally  with  the  children 
of  the  serf.  There  was  not  a  house  where  there 
was  not  one  dead ;  and  in  many  houses  no  one 
was  left  alive.  As  a  consequence  wages  rose  at 
once ;  a  fact  which  emphasises  the  important 
truth  that  the  serf  or  labourer  had  now  become 
a  wage-earner.  A  nobleman  whose  crop  had  been 
harvested  for  £3  13s.  9d.  in  the  year  before  the 
visitation  had  to  pay  £12  19s.  lOd.  in  the  following 


116  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF 

year.  This  economic  movement  was,  of  course,  in 
no  way  peculiar  to  England,  any  more  than  the 
determination  of  those  in  power  to  prevent  the 
labourer  from  reaping  the  fruits  of  the  change,  if 
they  could. 

The  battle  between  labour  with  its  enhanced 
value  and  capital  in  alliance  with  ignorance  of 
economic  law  was  everywhere  joined  with  the 
most  varied  results.  But  on  the  whole  the  cause 
of  freedom  advanced  throughout  the  dreary  cruel 
strife  with  privilege  and  use  and  wont.  There 
are  two  great  social  struggles  which  were  essen- 
tially campaigns  in  the  labour  war  which  show 
how  this  progress  was  made  and  what  was  the 
nature  of  it.  They  show  on  the  one  hand  very 
clearly  what  serfdom  was  and  on  the  other  hand 
that,  gradual  as  the  process  of  amelioration  was, 
it  had  its  cataclysms.  They  were  the  uprising 
of  the  peasants  in  England  in  1381,  and  the 
Peasants'  War  in  the  Reformation  era.  The 
conflict  came  earlier  in  England  than  elsewhere, 
since  in  this,  as  in  so  much  else  in  the  history 
of  liberation,  the  English  people  were  in  the 
forefront.  This  was  probably  due  in  part  to 
their  insular  and  isolated  position,  especially 
after  the  wars  in  which  Jeanne  d'Arc  had 
happily  driven  them  from  the  continent ;  for 
anything  which  grew  out  of  the  Crusades  and 
the  Black  Death  was  common  to  England  and 
the  greater  part  of  Europe.  In  June,  1349,  the 
very  year  of  the  plague,  it  was  enacted  by  the 
English  Parliament  that  labourers  should  not 
receive  nor  should  masters  pay  more  wages 
than  had  been  paid  before  the  plague,  and 
that    workers    should    be    obliged    to    work    for 


THE   LABOURER  AS  A  SERF  117 

the  old  rate  of  wages  when  required  to  do  so. 
Two  years  later,  in  1351,  the  famous  Statute  of 
Labourers,  w^hich  was  destined  to  remain  on 
the  Law  Books  for  two  centuries  and  a  half, 
was  passed  in  pursuance  of  the  same  determina- 
tion to  achieve  the  impossible.  Again,  in  1361, 
ten  years  later,  it  was  decreed  that  labourers 
who  were  caught  escaping  from  one  county  to 
another,  or  from  the  country  to  the  town,  in 
the  hope  of  getting  better  wages,  should  be 
imprisoned   and  branded   on   the   forehead. 

The  response  to  all  this  on  the  part  of  the 
labourers,  a  response  which  in  some  ways  is 
the  measure  of  the  progress  they  had  made 
from  serfdom  to  freedom,  was  a  vast  under- 
ground, systematic  combination  of  workers,  the 
first  English  Trade  Union,  and  twenty  years  after 
the  plague  year  the  wages  of  a  harvest  worker 
were  double  what  the  Statute  fixed,  so  powerful 
did  the  combination  prove  to  be.  The  peaceable 
movement,  too,  by  which  personal  service  was 
commuted  for  a  money  payment,  went  on  apace 
and  w^as  full  of  promise  for  the  future.  The 
solution,  however,  was  not  to  be  altogether 
peaceable,  and  in  1381  the  inevitable  outbreak 
and  trial  of  strength  came  in  the  rising  under 
Wat  Tyler,  John  Ball,  and  Jack  Straw.  The 
immediate  occasion  of  the  outbreak  was  the  Poll 
Tax  which  had  been  instituted  the  year  before, 
and  one  of  the  battle-cries  of  the  rising  told 
what  the  new  spirit  was  which  was  abroad, 
"when  Adam  delved  and  Eve  span,  who  was 
then  the  gentleman  ? "  The  insurrection  was 
put  down  with  a  maximum  of  treachery  and 
cruelty,   and  seemed  altogether  abortive,   but  in 


118  THE   LABOURER  AS   A   SERF 

reality  it  achieved  its  purpose.  So  far  as  the 
official  Church  was  concerned  it  has  to  be  sorrow- 
fully acknowledged  that  the  Bishops  voted  just 
as  the  Lords  Temporal  did  for  the  repudiation 
of  the  king's  promise  that  the  villeins  would  be 
enfranchised ;  yet  what  the  peasants  demanded 
w^as  tacitly  granted,  and  although  villeinage  still 
lingered  for  a  while  in  some  districts  it  really 
died  out  very  speedily  after  this  momentous 
conflict.* 

There  is  some  consolation,  too,  in  the  fact  that 
if  the  princes  of  the  Church  w^ere  blind  to  the 
leadings  of  Christ  and  deaf  to  the  cries  of  His 
poor,  the  humbler  priests  who  loved  and  laboured 
among  the  people  were  more  loyal  to  their  Lord, 
and  did  not  fail  to  manifest  the  spirit  of  His 
gospel  or  to  lead  their  flocks  into  the  promised 
land.  From  that  time  onwards  rural  society  in 
England  began  to  assume  the  forms  which  it 
still  in  great  measure  retains ;  the  chief,  if  not 
indeed  the  only,  modification  which  has  since 
been  made   being  that   which   came   through  the 

*"  Since  1381,  when  the  peasants  were  taught  by  the  Poor 
Priests  to  use  their  power  in  the  demand  for  the  rights  of 
humanity  in  the  name  of  God  and  justice,  no  one  has 
attempted  to  make  serfs  of  the  English  labourers "  (Van 
Dyke,  "The  Age  of  the  Renascence,"  p.  18).  This  is 
too  absolute,  but  it  is  a  vivid  American  way  of  stating  the 
truth.  Cf,  also  another  American,  Longfellow,  in  "The 
Norman  Baron,"  where,  under  the  combined  influence  of 
the  Church's  admonitions  and  the  fear  of  death — 

"Every  vassal  of  his  banner, 
Every  serf  born  of  his  manor. 
All  these  wronged  and  wretched  creatures, 
By  his  hand  were  freed  again." 


THE   LABOURER  AS   A  SERF  119 

Law  of  Settlement  and  the  Poor  Laws,  w^hich 
in  our  own  time  have  just  been  weighed  in  the 
balance  and  found  wanting.  The  new  freemen 
w^ho  emerged  from  villeinage  enlarged  the 
yeomen  class  already  existing  and  did  much  to 
strengthen  the  cause  of  the  commons  alike  in 
Parliament  and  in  the  country.  "  A  hundred 
years  after  the  Black  Death,"  says  Mr.  Green, 
"  we  learn  from  a  high  authority  that  the  wages 
of  an  English  labourer  'commanded  twice  the 
amount  of  the  necessaries  of  life  which  could 
have  been  obtained  for  the  wages  paid  under 
Edward  the  Third.'"* 

The  connection,  if  any,  between  this  great  and 
fruitful  conflict  and  the  religious  movement 
associated  with  the  name  of  John  Wiclif  has 
been  much  discussed ;  and  for  our  present 
purpose  is,  of  course,  a  question  of  supreme 
importance.  Some  of  the  Reformer's  champions 
have  been  at  great  pains  to  prove  that  he  had 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  labour  revolt — 
a  very  unhappy  conclusion  were  it  possible  to 
reach  it  with  justice.  It  goes  without  saying 
that  he  had  no  sympathy  with  the  excesses 
which  were  perhaps  inseparable  from  such 
an  outbreak  of  hatred  and  violence ;  and  it 
has  been  put  beyond  any  question  that  he 
gave  no  personal  encouragement  to  the  rising 
which  took  place  only  three  years  before  his  death. 

All  the  same,  there  is  an  unmistakable  spiritual 
resemblance  between  his  teaching  and  the  teach- 
ings which  inspired  the  social  revolution.  It  is 
probable,  indeed,  that  the  outbreak  assumed  a 
form  which  did  much  to  retard  the  movement  of 
*  "Short  History  of  the  English  People,"  p.  250. 


120  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF 

amelioration  which  had  already  begun,  and  that 
Wiclif s  method  would  have  been  vastly  different 
from  that  which  was  followed  by  the  leaders  of 
the  peasants.  But  the  true  friends  of  the  gospel 
and  the  true  lovers  of  the  poor  and  downtrodden 
over  whom  Christ  yearns  as  one  of  themselves, 
can  have  no  sympathy  with  Wiclif's  would-be 
vindicators,  either  when  they  emphasise  the  warm 
support  which  they  insist  he  always  gave  to  the 
position  and  dignity  of  the  Temporal  Lords,  or 
when  they  denounce  the  labour  leaders  of  the  time 
as  sowers  of  sedition  and  democratic  clamourers 
for  equality.  It  is  of  the  very  essence  of  the 
gospel  which  the  Reformer  preached  that 
equality  is  not  democratic  merely,  but  Christian ; 
and  it  must  never  be  forgotten  that  even  grave 
and  just  historians  have  taken  far  too  many  of 
their  ideas  of  the  movement  and  far  too  much  of 
their  information  regarding  these  early  labour 
leaders  from  their  bitter  and  often  unscrupulous 
foes.  It  has  been  so  all  through  in  the  records 
which  have  come  down  to  us  regarding  such 
extremists  and  agitators  as  the  Anabaptists  and 
the  so-called  Levellers.  The  very  cry  which  has 
survived  to  our  time  about  Adam,  delving  and  Eve 
spinning  shows  that  part  at  least  of  their  inspira- 
tion came  from  the  Scriptures,  which  were  now 
becoming  known  to  them ;  and  a  flood  of  light  is 
shed  on  the  character  of  many  of  the  rebels 
by  an  incident  connected  with  the  burning  of 
the  palace  of  the  Duke  of  Lancaster.  When  a 
plunderer  was  caught  with  a  silver  cup  which  he 
had  stolen,  he  was  thrown  into  the  flames  with 
the  cry,  "  We  are  seekers  of  truth  and  justice  and 
not  thieves." 


THE   LABOURER  AS   A   SERF  121 

The  truth  is  that  unless  the  religious  move- 
ment of  which  Wiclif  was  the  leading  figure,  and 
which  was  already  portending  the  greater  refor- 
mation which  was  to  follow  by  and  by,  had  had 
its  message  for  the  long-suffering  serfs  of  the 
time-  and  for  the  labour  problem  of  the  age,  its 
gospel  would  have  been  no  better  than  that 
of  the  priest  and  Levite  who  passed  by  on  the 
other  side.  As  for  the  excesses  which  marred 
the  movement,  they  were  to  be  found  on  both 
sides  alike,  and  so  far  as  the  peasants  were 
concerned  they  were  largely  due  to  the  blunders 
and  selfishness  of  the  rulers.  In  all  the  struggle 
there  was  nothing,  on  the  side  of  the  peasantry, 
so  base  and  shameful  as  the  treachery  of  the 
young  King  Richard  and  his  councillors  when 
they  induced  the  people  to  disperse  and  go  back 
to  their  homes  in  peace,  on  the  strength  of  the 
most  ample  promises  of  redress  and  reform,  when 
all  the  while  their  fixed  intention  was  to  slay 
them  in  cold  blood.  Far  from  repudiating  that 
mediaeval  movement  of  the  labourers  as  they 
sought  recognition  of  their  rights  and  an  ampler 
share  of  the  fruits  of  their  toil,  we  rejoice  to  be 
able  to  claim  it  as  largely  due  to  the  spread  of 
New  Testament  Christianity.  The  social  move- 
ment in  the  State  was  coincident  with  the  Re- 
formation movement  in  the  Church  just  because 
God's  good  news  was  stirring  yearnings  for 
deliverance,  as  it  could  not  fail  to  do,  in  the 
hearts  of  those  for  whom  it  was  making  all 
things  new.  Nor  is  it  without  significance  that 
the  labour  movement  of  that  time  was  in  reality 
much  more  successful  than  the  religious  move- 
ment in  the    Church.     Things  have    never  again 


122  THE   LABOURER  AS   A  SERF 

been  quite  so  bad  for  the  labourers  in  Britain  as 
they  had  been  before  that  era,  and  that  four- 
teenth-century labour  movement  is  in  close  touch 
with  all  the  progress  which  has  since  been  made  ;  * 
but  as  regards  the  religious  movement  it  is  very 
doubtful  whether  Wiclif's  work  had  any  organic 
connection  whatsoever  with  the  Reformation  in 
the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  Wiclif  was  not 
the  Morning  Star  of  the  English  Reformation, 
although  he  has  been  so  described ;  whereas  the 
Peasant  Rising  then  was  indeed  the  dawning  of 
the  day  of  labour  reform  in  England.  And  who 
can  say  that  it  is  not  probable  that  the  failure  of 
the  movement  in  the  Church  was  due  to  the 
failure  even  of  the  Reformers  to  be  loyal  to  the 
social  logic  of  what  they  preached  ?  There  may 
indeed  be  something  in  the  affirmation  of  a 
German  historian  f  that  the  peasants'  wars 
before  the  Reformation — and  there  were  many 
of  them,  and  these  full  of  woe — were  essentially 
different  from  those  which  came  after  that  event, 
and  that  in  the  former  the  feeling  which  lay  at 
the  bottom  was  the  purely  human  feeling  of 
hatred  of  unjust  oppression,  whereas  in  the  latter 
there  was  also  present  a  powerful  religious 
sentiment :  the  faith  that  men  were  fighting  in 
the  interests  of  true  Christianity.     But  in  so  far 

*  In  Mary  Tudor's  reign,  two  centuries  after  the  time  of 
the  Black  Death,  a  Spanish  visitor  remarked  that  "these 
English  live  in  houses  built  of  sticks  and  mud,  but  therein 
they  fare  plenteously  as  lords."  There  was  rough  plenty  in 
these  days,  and  in  the  Pilgrimage  of  Grace,  which  was  partly 
at  least  a  peasant  rising,  the  peasants  gave  a  good  account  of 
themselves. 

f  Hausser,  "The  Period  of  the  Reformation,"  vol.  i.  p.  120. 


THE   LABOURER  AS   A   SERF  123 

as  that  distinction  is  correct — and  it  is  only  par- 
tially true — it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  Wiclif 's 
movement  was  an  anticipation  of  the  Reformation 
in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  that  it  was  the  new 
religious  spirit  which  was  then  abroad  in  England 
which  made  men  feel  their  oppression  intolerable 
after  a  new  fashion.  It  was  Christ  who  was  causing 
them  to  realise  their  manhood  as  they  had  never 
realised  it  before,  and  to  awake  to  their  rights. 

And  there  is  this  additional  fact  to  be  borne 
in  mind,  that  the  men  in  whom  these  new 
aspirations  w^ere  thus  born  were  those  who  had 
been  called  to  face  the  new  severities  and  re- 
strictions of  the  oppressive  Statute  of  Labourers. 
No  wonder,  therefore,  that  they  were  filled  with 
a  berserker  rage,  and  that  they  rose  in  wrath 
to  cast  off  their  chains.  Far  from  being  some- 
thing to  be  apologised  for,  or  something  to  be 
repudiated,  it  is  something  to  be  gloried  in  that 
it  was  so  ;  and  it  would  have  been  well  had  more 
apologies  of  the  same  sort  been  required.  It  may 
be  noted,  too,  that  whether  or  not  Wiclif  was 
in  reality  the  inspirer  of  the  labour  rising,  the 
odium  of  being  the  sower  of  strife  and  sedition 
fell  on  him  and  robbed  him  of  his  influential 
friends.  In  his  own  phrase,  "  Pilate  and  Herod 
became  friends  "  in  their  denunciation  of  him  and 
his  works.  The  barons  in  their  professed  willing- 
ness to  perish  together  in  one  day  rather  than 
grant  "liberties  and  manumissions  to  their 
villeins  and  bond-tenants,"  joined  hands  with  the 
hierarchy  in  their  determination  to  crush  out 
heresy.  To  those  who  then  ruled  England  the 
two  movements  were  not  two,  but  one,  and  for- 
tunately    in    their     efforts    to    crush    them    out 


124  THE   LABOURER  AS  A  SERF 

together,  however  much  misery  and  bloodshed 
they  caused  at  the  time,  they  could  not 
permanently  succeed. 

"For  freedom's  battle  once  begun, 
Bequeathed  by  bleeding  sire  to  son, 
Though  baffled  oft,   is  ever  won." 

When  we  turn  to  the  Peasants'  War  in  Ger- 
many, in  the  time  of  Luther,  the  connection 
between  the  religious  and  social  revolutions  is 
at  once  manifest;  although  the  great  Reformer 
himself  denounced  the  revolting  labourers  in  the 
most  violent  and  reckless  fashion.  Yet  some  of 
his  champions  have  also  sought  to  do  for  him 
what  we  have  just  seen  some  of  Wiclif's  trying 
to  do  for  him.  Although  serfdom  had  died  out 
in  England  more  than  a  century  before,  it  was 
still  existing  in  Germany  when  the  Reformation 
began.  The  German  peasants  were  serfs,  and 
throughout  the  Empire  the  relation  between  the 
masters  and  their  labourers  was  as  bad  as  it  pos- 
sibly could  be.  The  German  workers  felt  their 
bondage  the  more  intolerable  in  presence  of  the 
freedom  and  independence  of  their  Swiss  neigh- 
bours. In  the  south-west  of  Germany,  where  this 
contrast  was  most  keenly  felt,  the  German  serfs 
had  in  the  years  1476,  1492,  1512,  and  1513  made 
attempts  to  secure  what  their  Swiss  brethren 
enjoyed  and  it  was  in  the  same  district  that  the 
great  rising  in  1524-1525  broke  out.  The  Peasants' 
War  was,  therefore,  no  new  thing.  The  same 
wrongs  and  the  same  social  influences  formerly 
at  work  were  at  work  still,  and  bad  harvests  for 
two  years  in  succession  provided  the  spark  for 
the  gunpowder,  which  was  always  lying  ready  to 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF  125 

be  ignited ;  and  did  so  in  a  fashion  very  similar 
to  that  in  which  the  corresponding  spark  was 
provided  in  the  days  of  the  Revolution  in  France 
in  1789,  when  French  serfdom  finally  perished. 
But  there  were  also  new  forces  at  work  which 
must  be  taken  into  account.  The  fact  that  the 
insurrectionists  put  in  the  forefront  the  claim 
that  they  should  be  allowed  to  choose  their  own 
pastors,  and  that  [they  declared  their  willingness 
to  have  their  demands  tested  by  the  Word  of 
God,  showed  clearly  that  they  were  living  in  a 
new  atmosphere,  and  that  it  was  the  new  Evan- 
gelical impulse  which  w^as  filling  them  with  new 
hopes  and  new  determination. 

In  the  Twelve  Articles  which  these  revolting  serfs 
drew  up  as  their  programme  and  as  embodying 
their  demands,  they  set  forth  their  beautiful  and 
pathetic  resolution  to  be  no  longer  regarded  "as 
the  property  of  others  since  Christ  had  redeemed 
all  alike  with  His  blood."  They  had  found  spiritual 
freedom  at  the  Cross,  and  in  the  midst  of  their 
manifold  hardships  and  wrongs  they  saw  clearly 
that  freedom  in  the  State  was  involved  in  the 
deliverance  which  Christ  had  wrought  for  them 
and  that  it  ought  to  grow  out  of  it.  In  the 
new  light  which  had  come  to  them  they  saw 
what  it  has  taken  Christendom  so  long  to  see,  and 
what  some  Christians  have  not  seen  even  yet, 
that  Calvary  was  the  birthplace  of  the  true  and 
enduring  rights  of  men.  They  saw,  too,  what  so 
many  have  never  seen  yet,  that  it  is  a  mockery 
and  an  insult  for  men  who  say  that  Christ  has 
redeemed  them,  to  treat  others  whom  they  also 
say  He  has  redeemed  as  beasts  of  burden,  and  to 
rob  them  of  the   birthright   which  their  common 


126  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF 

Lord  has  purchased  for  them  with  His  own  blood. 
Even  as  the  early  Jerusalem  Church  had  all 
things  in  common  in  the  first  ardour  of  their 
love  and  in  the  new  light  undimmed  as  yet  by  pru- 
dential considerations,  and  as  slavery  in  the 
Empire  had  become  serfdom  in  presence  of  the 
implications  of  the  Cross,  so  these  humble  German 
peasants  saw  the  truth  in  its  fulness  and  beauty 
in  the  new  light  which  had  flooded  their  sad  and 
sordid  lives,  as  only  God's  redeeming  light  can. 
And  whenever  we  set  aside  the  unjust  charges 
made  against  them  by  prejudiced  historians,  we 
see  at  once  how  reasonable  and  moderate  the 
demands  of  these  enlightened  serfs  were.  They 
demanded  the  abolition  of  forced  labour,  a 
system  w^hich  was  as  iniquitous  as  it  was  waste- 
ful, and  the  abolition  of  the  more  oppressive  of 
their  feudal  taxes,  which  were  as  galling  to  their 
manhood  as  they  were  unjust  to  their  miserable 
gains.  To  have  granted  these  demands,  however, 
would  have  meant  a  social  revolution,  and  almost 
everywhere  the  nobles  treated  them  with  indigna- 
tion and  contempt.  Unfortunately,  even  those 
nobles  who  were  themselves  in  the  new  light  could 
not  see  what  it  meant  for  the  suffering  peasants.* 

As  for  Luther,  his  position  was  a  very  diffi- 
cult one.  On  the  one  hand,  he  was  the  son  of 
a  peasant,  and  his  great  human  heart  w^as 
sore  for  those  whose  hard  bondage  seemed  to 
be  growing  harder  and  harder  every  year.  On 
the  other  hand,  the    reforming  work    of  his  life, 

*  The  opinions  entertained  even  among  the  governing 
classes  were  very  varied,  and  many  of  the  Imperial  cities  were 
in  favour  of  the  demands  of  the  peasants.  See  Hausser, 
"The  Period  of  the  Reformation,"  vol.  i.  p.  129. 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF  127 

that  which  was  dearer  to  him  than  life  itself, 
might  be  undone  in  a  great  social  upheaval. 
Already  he  was  denounced  from  the  one  camp 
as  a  half-hearted  reformer,  disloyal  at  once  to 
logic  and  the  gospel ;  while  on  the  other  side 
there  were  those  who  were  making  the  evan- 
gelical doctrines  which  he  proclaimed  responsible 
for  w^hat  they  thought  was  their  vile  social  fruit. 
Yet,  admitting  all  this,  it  must  be  added  that 
no  course  could  have  been  sadder  or  more  disas- 
trous than  that  which  he  ultimately  pursued.  At 
first  he  tried  to  mediate  between  the  contend- 
ing parties ;  before  he  declared  himself  against 
them  the  masses  counted  on  him  as  their  leader, 
or  reckoned  at  least  on  his  silent  approval ; 
but  latterly  he  turned  savagely  on  the  poor 
peasants  who  had  trusted  to  him  for  help, 
and  actually  hounded  on  the  nobles  in  their 
hellish  work,  although  no  encouragement  was 
required.  Not  only  did  some  150,000  men  perish 
in  the  atrocities,  but  the  struggle  left  the  wretched 
serfs  in  a  worse  condition  than  ever.  They  fell 
back  in  bitterness  and  despair,  alienated  for 
ever  from  the  Reformation  ;  while,  at  the  same 
time,  many  of  their  oppressors  went  no  more 
w^ith  the  new  movement.  It  was  not  the  counter 
Reformation  which  stayed  the  onw^ard  march  of 
the  Protestant  Church,  and  drew  lines  of  demar- 
cation which  remain  yet,  so  much  as  this  fatal 
Peasants'  War,  with  all  its  disillusionment  and 
betrayal  of  the  truth  of  Christ  and  of  those 
for  whom  He  died.*     Perhaps  it  was  beyond  the 

*  Professor  Pollard  says :  "It  was  little  wonder  that  the 
organisers  of  the  Lutheran  Church  afterwards  found  the 
peasants  deaf  to  their  exhortations  or  that  Melanchthon  was 


128  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF 

wit  of  man  at  that  time  to  find  a  complete 
solution  for  the  labour  problem  as  it  then  pre- 
sented itself,  but  it  is  more  than  probable  that 
if  the  Reformers,  and  especially  Luther,  had 
accepted  their  due  share  of  responsibility,  the 
most  lamentable  of  the  excesses  would  have  been 
spared  ;  the  utter  failure  of  the  outbreak  would 
have  been  avoided ;  the  counter  Reformation 
would  have  proved  abortive ;  and  the  miserable 
decline  of  the  Churches  into  Erastianism,  for- 
malism, and  death  would  have  been  averted. 
Of  course  there  was  much  in  the  rising  which 
deserved  denunciatibn,  especially  as  the  conflict 
deepened  and  hope  fled.  But  when  did  evil 
laws  and  cowardly  inaction  fail  to  provide  an 
evil  justification  for  themselves?  It  is  vain  to 
lament  now  over  what  might  have  been  had 
Luther  been  as  resolute  against  the  lords  as  he 
was  against  the  bishops,  unless  in  so  far  as  to 
secure  that  the  same  great  refusal  and  betrayal 
will  never  again  be  made ;  but  to  this  day  the 
Church  of  Christ  in  Europe  has  never  again  had 
the  supreme  opportunity  which  it  then  had  to 
solve  the  labour  problem  in  the  spirit  of  the 
Master,  and  to  proclaim  His  message  of  social 
salvation  and  hope  to  the  toiling  multitudes. 

It  may  be  that  amid  the  warring  voices  which 
are  advertising  their  wares  all  around  in  these 
days  of  Socialism  some  lull  may  ere  long  come  in 
which  the  still  small  voice  of  Christ  will  be  heard ; 
and  it  should  be  the  dearest  desire  of  all  who  love 
Him  that  such  an  opportunity  may  never  again 

once  constrained  to  admit  that  the  people  abhorred  himself 
and  his  fellow-divines"  ("Cambridge  Modern  History," 
vol.   ii.  p.    113). 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF  129 

be  vilely  cast  away.  To  defend  Luther  and  his 
fellow-workers  from  the  charge  of  deserting  the 
masses  in  their  need  is  more  necessary  and  difficult 
than  to  show  that  it  was  no  blame  of  theirs  that 
their  disciples  could  not  limit  the  good  news  to  the 
realm  of  the  soul.  That  the  two  movements  were 
closely  related  is  beyond  doubt  or  discussion. 
Whether  for  weal  or  woe,  for  censure  or  for 
praise,  that  should  not  only  be  acknowledged  but 
avowed.  Not  that  they  necessarily  stood  to  each 
other  as  cause  and  effect.  The  truth  rather  is 
that  both  alike  had  their  roots  deep  down  in  the 
past  and  grew  out  of  the  same  new  strivings  and 
impulses  which  were  then  at  work.  That  is  not  a 
fact  for  Protestants  to  be  ashamed  of,  but  some- 
thing in  which  they  may  rather  find  satisfaction.* 
Nor  should  all  the  emphasis  be  put  on  what  the 
Reformation  did  as  if  it  were  an  isolated  thing.  It 
had  its  roots  in  the  mediaeval  Church,  and  that  not 
merely  in  the  sporadic  movements  which  gathered 
round  "  Reformers  before  the  Reformation,"  but  in 
the  best  life  of  the  Catholic  Church,  which  was 
never  quite  bereft  of  witnesses  to  the  saving,  keep- 
ing grace  of  God.  Those  Protestants  who  find 
their  spiritual  ancestry  in  the  schismatics  and 
sectaries  of  the  Middle  Ages  are  not  rising  to  the 
height   of  their   calling.     With  all  its  faults,  the 

*  Professor  Pollard  ("Cambridge  Modem  History,"  ii.  113) 
says  of  Luther  that  "his  sympathy  with  the  masses  seems 
to  have  been  limited  to  those  occasions  when  he  saw  in  them 
a  usefiil  weapon  to  hold  over  the  heads  of  his  enemies,"  and 
that  he  was  not  free  from  "the  upstart's  contempt  for  the 
class  from  which  he  sprang."  But  that  is  to  misjudge  entirely 
the  great,  warm-hearted,  impulsive  hero  who,  like  the  Apostle 
Peter  and  many  another,  had  the  defects  of  his  qualities. 

Christianity  and  Iiobowr.  10 


130  THE   LABOURER  AS   A  SERF 

mediaeval  Church  itself  cherished  and  perpetuated 
many  great  social  ideals  which  had  more  than 
aught  else  to  do  with  the  disappearance  of  serfdom 
in  the  fulness  of  time.  There  was,  for  example, 
the  ideal  of  holy  poverty  as  it  was  illustrated  in 
such  a  life  as  that  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi.*  There 
was  likewise  the  ideal  of  justice  as  set  forth  in  the 
demands  of  the  Canonists  for  a  fair  price,  honest 
work,  and  good  value  in  trading.  And  there  was 
also  the  ideal  of  brotherhood  as  embodied  in  the 
guilds  which  may  have  become  fraternities  of  evil 
in  Lord  Bacon's  time,  but  which  in  the  earlier  ages 
did  much  to  make  labour  honourable  and  to  set  it 
free.  The  splendid  and  enduring  work  which  their 
members  did  was  in  sharp  contrast  to  the  deprecia- 
tion of  labour  in  the  ancient  pagan  world  ;  and  it 
did  much  to  show  men  what  it  means  that  a  man's 
work  is  his  Divine  "  calling,"  the  means  by  which 
he  can  best  serve  his  fellows  and  glorify  God,  and 
that  all  his  work  may  be  Divine  service  and  work 
for  God.  None  of  these  ideals  may  have  been 
universally  or  even  widely  realised  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  It  can  hardly  be  claimed  that  they  are 
widely  realised  yet.  But  to  set  them  forth  even 
dimly  was  an  incalculable  service,  and  their  place 
in  the  history  of  labour  is  a  sacred  one.  The 
fruit  of  the  consecrated  toil  of  that  far  distant 
past  which  was  done  under  their  inspiration,  and 
which  has  come  down  to  us,  is  rightly  regarded  as 
among  the  m.ost  cherished  treasures  of  our  modern 

*  "It  was  indeed  a  divine  enthusiasm  for  humanity  which 
inspired  the  first  Franciscans,  who  made  themselves  sharers 
in  all  the  misery  and  loathsomeness  of  mediaeval  slums,  if  by 
any  means  they  might  save  some  "  (Cunningham,  "  Growth 
of  English  Industry  and  Commerce,"  pp.  154-155). 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF  131 

heritage.  Even  if  many  who  helped  to  rear  these 
"  ancient  monuments  "  were  serfs,  they  were  free 
labourers  at  heart  and  not  servile,  men  who 
worked  for  the  unseen  and  eternal,  the  servants 
of  the  Most  High. 

To  sum  up,  then :  serfdom  came  to  an  end  in 
England  at  a  comparatively  early  date  in  spite  of 
every  interruption  and  every  barrier  put  by  those 
who  were  privileged  monopolists  in  the  way  of  the 
rising  tide.  In  Germany  it  died  out  very  slowly 
and  almost  imperceptibly  after  the  great  rising  in 
the  Reformation  era,  and  may  even  be  said  to 
have  lingered  on  until  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  In  France  some  of  the  worst  features  of 
it  only  disappeared  in  connection  with  the  great 
revolution  of  1789,  which  made  so  many  things 
new  in  the  baptism  of  blood.  Indeed,  some  of  the 
local  incidents  which  led  to  the  Peasants'  War 
in  Germany  were  almost  exactly  reproduced  in 
France  in  the  years  immediately  preceding  the 
great  upheaval.  The  peasants  were  compelled  in 
both  countries  to  leave  their  own  little  crops  wast- 
ing in  the  fields  that  they  might  take  in  the  crops 
of  their  lords,  or  even  to  gather  such  things  as 
nuts  and  wild  strawberries  for  them.  In  very 
wantonness  of  power  every  right,  legal  and  illegal, 
was  enforced  against  them  to  the  utmost,  as  if  the 
gods  had  made  those  mad  whom  they  were  so  soon 
to  destroy.  Strangely  enough,  in  Scotland  also, 
which  had  once  been  so  far  advanced  under  the 
inspiration  of  William  Wallace,  a  form  of  serfdom 
survived  until  the  closing  years  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  even  later,  that  is,  than  in  France,  although 
the  last  claim  of  serfdom  actually  proved  in  a 
Scottish  law  court  dates  as  far  back  as   the  year 


132  THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF 

1364.  There  were  colliers  and  salters  who  until  little 
more  than  a  century  ago  were  bound,  indepen- 
dently of  any  agreement  to  the  contrary,  on  enter- 
ing a  coal  or  salt  mine  to  perpetual  service  there.* 
The  right  to  their  labour  passed  to  any  new  owner 
of  the  mines  without  any  express  grant.  Sons 
had  to  follow  the  occupations  of  their  fathers,  and 
had  to  do  so  in  the  mines  to  which  they  were 
attached  by  birth.  This  extraordinary  state  of 
affairs,  which  has  been  traced  back  to  an  Act  of 
Parliament  which  was  passed  in  the  year  1606, 
only  came  to  an  end  in  the  last  year  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century ;  and  Hugh  Miller,  who  describes 
some  collier  women  whom  he  had  seen  who  were 
survivors  of  these  days  of  belated  servitude,  uses 
terms  which  are  almost  exactly  the  same  as  those 
used  by  modern  travellers  to  describe  savages. 
He  says  they  had  a  peculiar  type  of  mouth  by 
which  they  could  be  distinguished  from  other 
women.  It  was  wide  open  and  thick-lipped,  and 
projected  equally  above  and  below.  For  serfdom, 
and  especially  serfdom  out  of  due  time,  is  a  far- 
reaching  thing  when  it  lays  its  unclean  fingers  on 

*  "They  were  actually  excluded  from  the  Scotch  Habeas 
Corpus  Act  of  1701,  and  so  pitiable  was  their  condition  that 
in  1775  the  legislature  passed  an  Act  for  their  relief.  It  was 
provided  that  colliers  and  salters  commencing  work  after 
July  1,  1775,  should  not  become  slaves,  and  that  those 
already  in  a  state  of  slavery  might  obtain  their  freedom  in 
seven  years  if  under  twenty-one  years  of  age,  in  ten  years  if 
tinder  thirty-five.  But  the  Act  practically  remained  a  dead 
letter,  as  the  slaves  were  rarely  able  to  press  for  a  decree  of 
enfranchisement  through  the  Sheriff's  Court ;  so  finally,  in 
1799,  a  measure  was  carried  by  which  their  freedom  was 
absolutely  established"  (Barnett  Smith,  "History  of  the 
English  Parliament,"  vol.  ii.  p.  345). 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERF  133 

the  soul.  It  shows  itself  even  in  the  face,  and  how 
much  more  in  the  life !  It  takes  generations  not 
only  to  make  social  and  legislative  changes  effec- 
tive, but  to  remove  the  marks  which  never  wholly 
disappear  until  the  whole  being  has  been  lifted  up 
to  a  higher  level  by  a  new  life.  Hence  it  is  that 
in  St.  Paul's  time  the  emphasis  was  laid  on  the 
power  of  the  gospel  to  keep  those  free  in  spirit 
who  were  still  in  cruel  bonds ;  and  it  is  here  that 
the  unique  value  of  the  gospel  emerges.  It  alone 
gives  life  from  the  dead,  renews  the  springs  of 
effort,  and  calls  the  lowliest  to  fellowship  with 
God,  In  Scotland  serfdom  seems  to  have  been  a 
recognised  penalty  for  certain  crimes  as  a  sort  of 
alternative  to  the  death  sentence.  In  Covenanting 
times  many  prisoners  were  sent  as  bondmen  to 
the  East  Indies,  and  traces  of  the  same  practice  in 
other  connections  appear  in  ancient  records.  In 
the  Charter  Chest  of  the  Athole  family  at  Dunkeld, 
for  example,  it  is  narrated  that  on  December  5, 
1701,  Donald  MacDonald  having  been  found 
deserving  of  death  for  theft,  was  gifted  as  a 
perpetual  servant  to  the  Earl  of  TuUibardine. 
And  even  Carlyle  in  his  grim  irony  said  that  the 
slavery  question  was  really  one  of  engaging 
servants  for  life  instead  of  by  the  week  or  the 
year. 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  LABOURER  AS   A  SERVANT 

THE  change  by  which  the  rural  serf  became 
the  free  tenant  or  servant  came  with  even 
less  observation  of  men  than  the  previous  changes 
in  the  uplift  of  labour,  and  is  very  difficult  to 
trace.  And  as  it  was  with  the  difference  between 
the  slave  and  the  serf,  the  difference  between 
the  serf  and  the  servant  was  not  very  great  at 
first,  and  consisted  more  in  its  possibilities  for 
the  days  to  come  than  in  anything  actually 
apparent  for  long.  Just  as  the  lot  of  many  a 
serf  was  harder  in  some  respects  than  that  of 
many  a  slave  had  been,  there  must  have  been 
many  servants  or  free  labourers  whose  condition 
in  some  respects  was  worse  than  that  of  many  a 
serf.  Their  new  freedom  must  often  have  seemed 
to  consist  mainly  in  being  free  to  starve.*  In 
practice  serfdom  had  often  been  kindlier  than  it 
was  in  theory,  as  was  frequently  the  case,  indeed, 
with  slavery  itself.  On  the  other  hand,  free  labour 
must    often  have  been  less  attractive  in  actual 

*  "  Freiheit  ist  keine  Losung '/^  and  Professor  Thorold 
Rogers  held  that  from  1568  to  1824  there  was  a  conspiracy 
to  cheat  the  English  workman  of  his  wages,  to  tie  him  to 
the  soil,  to  deprive  him  of  hope,  and  to  degrade  him  into 
irremediable  poverty. 

137 


138      THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT 

realisation  than  it  had  seemed  in  prospect.  Yet 
just  as  the  serf  was  far  in  advance  of  the  slave 
inasmuch  as  the  new  relation  had  vast  possibilities 
bound  up  with  it  for  the  future  of  labour,  so 
morally  and  socially  as  well  as  economically  the 
difference  between  the  serf  and  the  servant  was 
very  great.  Gurth,  the  serf  of  Cedric  the  Saxon 
preferred  freedom  with  all  its  risks  and  privations 
to  bondage,  even  with  its  certainties  of  a  roof  to 
cover  him,  a  master  to  defend  him,  and  sufficient 
food  to  eat.  And  even  if  it  be  true  that  the  state 
of  those  who  were  emerging  from  serfdom  must 
often  have  been  bitter  and  infinitely  sad,  it  is 
more  than  probable  that  the  feudal  system,  with 
its  pseudo-charity  and  its  real  oppression,  which 
they  were  leaving  behind  owes  some  of  its  attrac- 
tions to  distance ;  and  it  is  certain  that  labour 
made  a  mighty  step  onwards  when  feudalism 
became  a  thing  of  the  past.  In  spite  of  all  passion- 
ate and  rhetorical  declarations  to  the  contrary 
the  condition  of  the  free  labourer  at  its  worst 
was  not  so  bad  as  that  of  the  slave.  It  was, 
indeed,  infinitely  better  just  because  the  labourer 
was  now  free  and  had  become  a  man  in  a  new 
sense.* 

The  economic  difference  between  the  serf  and 
the  servant  was  great,  and  there  were  vast  possi- 
bilities for  the  servant  which  had  no  existence  for 

■''■  I  have  heard  of  a  man  on  trial  for  murder  who  declared 
that  he  would  rather  be  hanged  as  sane  than  get  off  as 
insane  ;  and  although  freedom  must  not  mean  freedom  to 
stairve,  it  is  better  to  starve  as  a  man  than  to  be  fed  as  a 
horse.  Freedom  led  men  into  the  wilderness  at  first  rather 
than  into  the  promised  land,  but  even  the  wilderness  is 
better  than  Egypt. 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT   139 

the  serf.  Just  as  the  gap  between  the  slave  and 
the  free  labourer  could  only  have  been  filled  by 
the  serf,  that  between  the  serf  and  the  employee, 
who  marks  the  latest  if  not  the  last  stage  in  the 
evolution  of  labour,  could  only  have  been  filled  by 
the  servant,  as  we  are  now  using  that  term.  The 
serf  had  no  choice  either  as  to  the  master  whom 
he  must  serve  or  as  to  the  sphere  where  he  must 
labour ;  whereas  the  servant  was  free  in  each  of 
these  respects  ;  free,  that  is,  so  far  as  the  entangle- 
ment of  circumstance  and  environment,  which 
hampers  the  strongest,  would  allow.  Not  only  so, 
but  the  legislative  efforts  which  were  soon  made  to 
restrict  his  freedom  show  that  from  the  beginning 
of  this  new  period  in  his  history  the  labourer  was 
making  use  of  his  liberty,  and  doing  his  best  to 
exercise  his  newly-gotten  and  still  very  indefinite 
rights.  Indeed,  it  is  from  these  efforts  at  restric- 
tion more  than  in  any  other  way  that  we  are  able 
now  to  learn  what  was  going  on  in  the  labour 
world  at  a  time  when  definite  records  are  few  and 
far  between.  The  notorious  Statute  of  Labourers, 
which  followed  the  scarcity  of  workers  consequent 
on  the  Black  Death,  applied  to  free  labourers  as 
well  as  to  serfs.  "  Every  man  or  woman,"  it  ran, 
"  of  whatever  condition,  free  or  bond,  and  within 
the  age  of  threescore  years,  and  not  having  of  his 
own  whereof  he  may  live,  nor  land  of  his  own 
about  the  tilling  whereof  he  may  occupy  himself, 
and  not  serving  any  other,  shall  be  bound  to  serve 
the  master  who  shall  require  him  to  do  so,  and 
shall  take  only  the  wages  which  were  accustomed 
to  be  taken  in  the  neighbourhood  where  he  is 
bound  to  serve."  The  battle,  in  short,  between 
capital   and   labour   after   the    modern    sort   had 


140   THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT 

begun,  and  it  began  as  soon  as  labour  was  able  to 
fight  or  had  anything  to  fight  for.  Whatever  the 
servant  got  was  obtained  in  the  face  of  opposition, 
continuous  and  bitter.  Those  who  were  in  power 
resorted  to  every  device  they  knew,  whether  fair  or 
foul,  to  keep  those  who  had  been  subject  to  them 
so  long,  in  subjection  still.  Then  as  always  labour 
had  to  fight  for  every  inch  which  was  won,  and 
had  ever  to  live  as  if  in  an  intrenched  camp  in  a 
hostile  land.  Whenever  contract,  in  which  the 
workman  had  some  measure  of  free  choice,  began 
to  take  the  place  of  status  where  his  lot  in  life  was 
decided  for  him,  and  the  new  situation  had  to  some 
extent  to  be  recognised  by  the  authorities,  efforts 
began  to  be  made  and  were  persisted  in  almost  to 
our  own  day  to  make  contract  as  like  status 
as  possible.  Nor  was  even  that  the  worst.  It  was 
only  the  bad  side  of  status  which  was  to  be  per- 
petuated, and  not  what  was  good  in  it ;  such  as  its 
sense  of  responsibility  for  the  sick  and  the  aged, 
and  its  crude  yet  vital  recognition  of  the  solidarity 
of  the  whole  nation.  In  other  words,  the  masters 
set  themselves  with  the  active  concurrence  of  the 
legislature  and  local  authorities,  and  often  with 
success,  to  make  the  servant  as  like  the  serf  as 
possible  where  his  duties  were  concerned,  but  not 
where  his  rights  were  concerned.  He  was  to  be 
a  serf  while  his  sphere  of  labour  and  his  wages 
were  being  fixed.  He  was  to  take  what  he  got 
and  go  where  he  was  sent.  But  when  times  were 
bad  or  he  was  old  or  broken  he  might  be  a  free 
labourer.     He  was  free  then  to  go  his  way. 

The  practical  outcome  of  this  was  that  while 
the  Black  Death  brought  the  labourer  more 
personal  freedom  and  higher  wages  it  deprived 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT   141 

him  of  security.  The  rise  of  the  proletariat  and  of 
an  unemployed  class  dates  from  that  age  which 
saw  the  further  economic  changes  consequent  on 
the  growth  of  manufactures  and  the  rise  of  capita- 
listic production.  And  so  for  long  the  freedom  of 
the  servant  was  often  little  more  than  a  name,  and 
was  of  value  mainly  because  of  what  was  yet  to 
grow  out  of  it.  Its  fulness  and  content  only  came 
as  the  centuries  passed,  and  came  through  suffer- 
ing and  conflict.  And  as  the  new  state  of  the  serf, 
which  meant  an  uplifting  for  the  slave,  involved 
more  than  slaves  in  its  sweep  and  meant  the 
degradation  of  some  who  were  already  free,  so  it 
is  probable  that  the  legislation  which  told  of  the 
growing  power  and  rising  demands  of  the  liberated 
serfs  helped  to  drag  others  who  were  already  out 
of  the  slough  down  to  their  level.  So  true  is  it 
that  the  progress  of  labour  has  been  through 
antagonism  and  with  blood  and  tears,  and  that 
there  has  been  many  an  ebbing  tide  as  the  waters 
have  risen  to  high-water  mark. 

For  some  time  after  the  ravages  of  the 
plague  the  condition  of  the  labour  market  was 
altogether  in  favour  of  the  labourer ;  and  that 
continued  to  be  the  case  w^hile  the  serfs  were 
emerging  into  free  service  after  the  Peasants' 
Revolt  and  obtaining  a  foothold  on  the  ladder. 
Nor  could  the  ill-conceived  attempts  of  the  rulers 
to  set  economic  laws  aside  and  meet  the  emer- 
gency by  penning  up  the  workers  and  stereotyping 
w^ages,  wholly  deprive  labour  of  its  rights  and 
advantages.  These  advantages,  however,  did  not 
long  continue.  By  and  by  the  population  rose 
once  more  to  its  normal  level,  and  the  same 
economic    laws   which   formerly   had    helped    the 


142      THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT 

labourer  now  took  the  market  out  of  his  hands. 
And  from  that  time  onwards,  for  many  a  long  and 
dreary  age,  the  condition  of  the  labourer  as 
servant  was  often  of  the  most  miserable  kind. 
Indeed,  it  is  probable  that  the  darkest  chapters  in 
the  history  of  the  labourer  in  these  realms  are 
not  to  be  found  in  the  era  when  he  was  a  serf, 
or  even  when  he  was  a  slave,  but  in  generations 
since  then  when  as  a  free  servant  he  had  to 
endure  all  the  hardships  and  woes  of  contract  and 
had  none  of  the  benefits  either  of  status  or 
contract  to  brighten  his  lot.  In  earlier  ages  the 
miseries  of  the  husbandman  and  the  ploughman, 
of  the  weak  and  unprotected,  had  been  mitigated 
by  the  peace  of  God  granted  to  them  through  the 
efforts  of  the  Church  ;  but  in  these  later  ages  they 
often  knew  little  either  of  God's  peace  or  the 
king's.  For  centuries  after  modern  civilisation 
emerged  from  medisevalism  the  common  labourer 
had  to  live  in  a  hovel  and  be  content  with  the 
coarsest  fare,  and  must  often  have  wished  to 
fill  his  belly  with  the  husks  which  the  swine  did 
eat.  And  while  it  is  right  to  take  long  views  and 
to  point  out  that — taking  the  movement  on  the 
large  scale  and  over  a  wide  enough  area — steady 
advance  was  undoubtedly  made,  that  ultimately 
men  and  things  must  adjust  themselves  to  eco- 
nomic conditions,  and  that  progress  though  slow 
is  sure,  it  is  nowise  right  to  slur  over  the  pain 
and  misery  and  wrong  endured  in  the  process. 
If    sure,   the   progress   has   also   been   very   slow. 

"Yes,  some  may  all  the   better  be  for  pain  and  blight  and 
fears  ; 
But    O,    how    many    eyes    there   be   cannot   see    God  for 
tears  1  " 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT   143 

In  "  Barnaby  Rudge  "  Dickens  says  that  after  the 
London  prisons  had  been  burned  in  the  Gordon 
Riots  some  of  the  poor  prisoners  were  found 
crouching  beside  the  ruined  walls  lamenting  the 
shelter  they  had  lost.  And  many  a  servant  in 
the  long  period  which  stretched  from  early  in  the 
fifteenth  century  till  well  on  in  the  nineteenth 
might  well  have  been  glad  to  creep  back  again 
into  the  prisons  of  serfdom  if  he  only  could, 
and  to  exchange  his  empty  freedom  for  something 
which  w^ould  at  least  have  ensured  him  his  food 
and  shelter.  Yet  all  the  while  the  deep,  unceasing 
forces  which  have  made  for  amelioration  were 
steadily  at  work ;  the  standard  of  living  was 
gradually  rising,  and  progress  was  being  made. 
Sometimes  the  divine  discontent  of  the  labourer 
was  both^the  proof  and  the  measure  of  the  advance 
which  was  being  made.  The  servant  was  a  man 
as  the  serf  could  not  be,  and  a  nation  of  serfs 
could  never  have  made  the  commonwealth  what 
even  already  a  nation  of  free  labourers  have  made 
it,  in  spite  of  all  their  anguish  and  wrongs.  Theirs 
was  the  sorrow  of  travail,  and  the  future  too  is 
theirs. 

When  we  go  back  to  the  attempts  at  restriction 
which  guide  us  to  a  knowledge  of  what  was  going 
on,  we  find  that  the  century  which  saw  serfdom 
dying  out  in  England  also  saw  the  beginning  of 
the  long  series  of  legislative  enactments  which 
restricted  and  interfered  with  labour.  As  early  as 
the  year  1304,  when  Edward  I.  was  king,  an 
Act  was  passed  to  prevent  workmen  com- 
bining to  promote  their  common  interests ;  the 
first  of  a  long  series  of  enactments  which  were 
only  repealed  in  our  own  time.     Then  in  1357  a 


144      THE   LABOURER   AS  A  SERVANT 

petition  was  presented  to  Parliament  complaining 
of    "  alliances   and   congregations  of  masons   and 
carpenters"  and   "of  oaths  betwixt  them  made." 
Nearly  two  centuries  later,  in  1548,  when  serfdom 
to  all  intents  and   purposes  was   a  thing   of   the 
past,  we  find  an  Act  passed  against  certain  "  arti- 
ficers, handicraftsmen,    and    labourers "  who    had 
"  sworn  mutual  oaths  only  to  do  certain  kinds  of 
work,  to  regulate  how  much  work  they  should  do 
in  a  day,  and  what  hours  and  times  they  should 
work."     There  were  the  usual  penalties — fines,  the 
pillory,  and  mutilation — provided  for  those  who 
persisted  in  such  practices,  some  of  which  have  a 
strangely  modern  ring  about  them.    Truly  there  is 
nothing  new  under  the  sun,  and  some  who  never 
fail  to  depreciate  their  own  time  in  comparison 
with   the   good   old   days    might   be   surprised   to 
find  that  men  shirked  their  work  centuries  ago, 
and  that  the  "  ca-canny  "  policy  is  not  the  novelty 
it  has  sometimes  been  supposed  to  be.     It  is  never 
quite  safe,  however,  to  accept  the  representations 
of  their  opponents,  we  might  almost  say  of  their 
foes,  as  to  how^  the  w^orkers  of  any  age  have  acted  ; 
and  it   ought   never  to   be    forgotten    that   until 
recent  times  the  masters  have  not  only  had   the 
making  of  the  laws  practically  in  their  own  hands, 
they  have  also  controlled  the  writers  of   history. 
But  from   the    trend   of  this   legislation  we  can 
judge  of  what  lay  behind,  and  conclude   that  on 
the  w^hole  a  new^  spirit  of  sturdy  independence  was 
making    its    appearance,    and    that    after  labour 
ceased  to  be  serfdom  it  followed  a  course  which 
can  still  be  traced.     On  the  one  side  there  were 
combinations   to   deprive   the    labourer  of    rights 
which  were  too  new  not  to  be  grudged,  and  after 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT   145 

their  wont  the  masters  invoked  and  used  the 
strong  arm  of  the  law  wherever  they  could.  On 
the  other  side  there  were  combinations  which  were 
none  the  less  potent,  and  all  the  more  likely  to 
be  lawless  that  for  the  most  part  they  were 
necessarily  underground.  Secret  societies  were  no 
novelties  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  when  they  got 
down  to  the  democracy  the  workers  knew  well 
how  to  spread  terror  by  means  of  organisations 
which  were  sometimes  strong  enough  to  paralyse 
the  authorities  and  prevent  the  administration  of 
such  justice  as  the  times  made  provision  for.  And 
of  course  these  labour  combinations  were  rendered 
all  the  more  dangerous  through  being  made  secret. 
That  such  a  law  as  that  of  1548,  just  referred 
to,  was  felt  to  be  necessary  shows  that  even  by 
the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  labourers 
had  risen  to  new  conceptions  of  their  rights  as 
comparatively  free,  and  to  the  possibilities 
of  their  new  condition,  if  only  they  stood  to- 
gether in  the  fray.  When  we  remember,  further, 
that  this  Act  brings  us  down  to  the  reign  of 
Edward  VI.  we  may  reasonably  infer  that  these 
new  conceptions  of  their  rights  and  possibilities 
were  not  unconnected  with  the  reformation  of 
religion,  such  as  it  was,  which  had  begun  in  the 
realm  during  the  previous  reign.  The  Church  in 
England  had  lost  much  of  her  influence  with  the 
poor  through  her  alliance  with  the  rich  and 
powerful  after  Wiclif 's  time ;  but  on  the  other 
hand  Wiclif 's  dream  had  now  been  realised  in  part 
through  the  spread  of  the  Enghsh  Bible  among 
all  who  could  read  or  were  willing  to  listen  while 
others  read.  Probably,  too,  the  boldness  of  the 
labourers   at  this   juncture  was    due  in  part  to 

Christianity  and  Labour.  H 


146   THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT 

the  weakness  of  the  central  Government;  to  the 
lessening  of  the  sense  of  authority  alike  in  the 
Church  and  the  State  ;  and  to  the  general  unrest 
which  prevailed.  Many  institutions  which  had 
been  deemed  as  stable  as  the  mountains  were 
now  in  the  melting-pot  or  altogether  overthrown, 
and  in  the  turmoil  the  workers  were  trying  to 
come  to  their  own.  Inquiry  was  everywhere 
active,  and  active  about  nearly  everything.  Above 
all,  thanks  first  to  Erasmus  and  then  to  Tyndale, 
the  New  Testament  was  now  an  open  book,  and 
was  telling  on  the  life  and  thought  of  the  genera- 
tion as  it  had  not  told  for  long.  The  same  pheno- 
mena which  were  witnessed  after  Wiclif's  wan- 
dering preachers  had  reached  the  masses  with  the 
gospel  were  now  manifesting  themselves  when 
the  masses  were  again  in  touch  with  the  gospel 
at  first  hand. 

The  Reformation  everywhere  made  men  re- 
sponsible and  free  after  a  new  fashion.  Not 
only  did  it  claim  the  right  of  private  judgment 
for  every  man  whether  peasant  or  peer,  whether 
layman  or  ecclesiastic,  it  put  a  new  emphasis  on 
the  duty  of  private  judgment  as  equally  incum- 
bent on  all.  Mr.  Benjamin  Kidd  declares  that 
the  two  doctrines  which  contributed  most  to 
producing  the  extinction  of  slavery,  when  it  dis- 
appeared, were  the  doctrine  of  salvation  and  the 
doctrine  of  equality,  and  that  the  altruism  born 
of  these  has  been  the  force  which  has  moved 
men  all  through  the  ages  and  taken  the  pith 
out  of  the  opposition  to  movements  of  reform 
and  amelioration.  And  these  were  pre-eminently 
the  doctrines  which  were  republished  and  rein- 
forced at  the  time  of  the  Reformation;   and  in- 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT   147 

evitably  they  soon  told  on  the  labouring  class  as 
on  all  other  classes.  Whenever  men  discovered  that 
every  soul  could  and  should  draw  near  to  God  for 
himself,  the  fullest  freedom  alike  in  the  Church 
and  State  was  involved  for  all ;  no  matter  how 
long  it  might  be  before  this  was  realised  in  either 
sphere.  Whenever  they  were  set  free  from  the 
power  of  the  priest  who  had  dominated  them 
so  long,  every  other  authority  was  put  on  its 
trial,  and  had  to  vindicate  itself  before  the  en- 
franchised souls  of  those  who  had  entered  into 
liberty. 

Some  say,  indeed,  that  by  its  gospel  of  individual 
salvation  the  Reformation  lent  the  sanction  of 
religion  to  the  selfish  creed  of  each  for  himself 
which  was  then  beginning  to  assert  itself  as  the 
dominating  principle  in  trade,  and  doubtless  as 
it  developed  the  movement  brought  loss  as  well 
as  gain.  All  the  same,  it  is  true  that  "  our  modern 
ideas  of  civil  liberty  are  in  the  last  resort  rooted 
in  the  Reformation.  From  the  moment  when 
the  Reformers  swept  away  all  that  came  between 
the  individual  soul  and  its  Creator,  asserted  the 
full  rights  of  the  humblest  human  being  to  un- 
restricted communion  with  God  through  Christ, 
and  laid  upon  him  the  burden  and  glory  of  re- 
sponsibility to  the  Supreme  for  the  gift  of  Eternal 
Life,  from  that  hour  political  liberty  became 
inevitable.  The  religious  truth  wrought  itself  out 
in  the  political  and  economic  sphere  by  virtue 
of  the  unity  of  the  soul.  Religious  conviction 
generated  the  spirit  of  Liberty."  * 

*  See  Cairns,  "Christianity  in  the  Modern  World,"  p.  284, 
where  he  refers  to  Lord  Acton's  remarkable  reinforcement  of 
this  statement,  Romanist  though  he  was. 


148      THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT 

It  must  be  recognised,  however,  that  in  more 
ways  than  one  the  Reformation  weakened  the 
influence  of  the  Church  in  connection  with  social 
problems  generally,  and  in  connection  with  the 
labour  problem  in  particular.  For  long  its  in- 
fluence in  that  realm  of  life  was  wholly  indirect. 
Not  only  had  she  lost  much  of  her  prestige 
through  her  alliance  with  the  capitalists  ;  in  her 
sadly  divided  state  the  Body  of  Christ  had  little 
time  for  such  concerns  as  the  claims  and  rights 
of  the  workers  ;  and  she  could  no  longer  speak 
with  the  authority  before  which  even  the  mightiest 
in  preceding  ages  had  had  to  bow.  Probably, 
however,  that  meant  less  in  practice  than  in 
theory,  for  even  in  the  days  of  her  greatest  power 
the  influence  of  the  Church  in  the  social  sphere 
was,  as  we  have  seen,  mostly  indirect.  Her  real 
work  and  her  best  had  been  to  leaven  the  lump 
of  humanity,  to  mitigate  the  sorrows  of  the  weak 
and  the  wronged,  to  create  new  conceptions  of 
the  personality  and  essential  dignity  of  man,  and 
to  give  her  benediction  to  whatever  was  kindly 
and  gracious  in  human  intercourse.  And  this  work 
she  continued  to  do  in  spite  of  all  her  weakness  and 
worldliness  and  obsequiousness.  Even  when  most 
Erastian  she  refused  to  overlook  altogether  the 
personality  of  the  labourer.  She  could  not  in 
any  way  be  loyal  to  the  gospel  and  allow  labour 
to  be  looked  at  in  such  an  abstract  way  that  the 
personality  of  the  labourer  was  left  out  of 
account.  Whether  as  sinner  or  saint,  the  lowliest 
was  always  set  forth  as  concrete  and  as  precious 
in  the  sight  of  God.  But  the  bearing  of  all  this 
on  labour  was  seldom  set  forth  in  any  official  way 
or  even  with  observation  of  men.     So  much  was 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT   149 

this  the  case  even  before  the  Reformation  that 
some  students  speak  as  if  the  Church  were  doing 
nothing,  or  less  than  nothing,  during  the  weary 
ages  which  came  after  the  suppression  of  the 
Lollards.  Yet  no  conclusion  could  be  more  un- 
founded, and  it  not  infrequently  happens  that  that 
attack  on  the  gospel  carries  its  own  refutation 
and  corrective  with  it.  Not  long  ago,  for  example, 
an  unbelieving  journal  in  discussing  the  labour 
problem  in  the  fourteenth  century  in  England 
bracketed  the  clergy  with  the  landlords  as  the 
covetous,  insolent,  and  tyrannical  foes  of  the 
working  man.  Yet  the  very  article  in  which  this 
attack  was  made  not  only  glorified  the  Christian 
Churchman  John  Ball  as  having  most  to  do  with 
the  Peasants'  Revolt,  which  was  in  reality  suc- 
cessful although  it  seemed  to  fail,  but  showed 
that  it  was  another  Christian  Churchman,  the 
author  of  the  "Complaint  of  Piers  Ploughman," 
who  gave  the  most  forceful  and  influential  expres- 
sion to  the  popular  sorrows  and  wrongs.  Nor  have 
such  brave  spokesmen  for  God  and  His  poor  ever 
been  wholly  awanting  in  our  land,  although  in 
many  cases  their  memory  and  their  name  are 
gone ;  and  to  miss  the  significance  of  the  fact 
is  not  only  to  be  false  to  historic  truth,  it  is  to 
throw  away  the  one  chance  we  have  of  solving 
our  own  problem  in  a  worthy  and  enduring  fashion. 
It  must  be  sorrowfully  admitted  that  although 
even  in  their  case  there  were  brilliant  exceptions, 
the  great  Churchmen  were  usually  either  silent 
regarding  such  matters  as  the  rights  and  wrongs 
of  serfs  and  free  servants,  or  frankly  on  the 
other  side.  They  were  often  worldly  Sadducean 
ecclesiastics  who  were  more  at  home  in  the  council 


150   THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT 

chamber  or  even  on  the  battlefield  than  in  their 
Bibles  or  among  the  poor.  But  the  humbler  priests 
who  lived  among  the  people  and  often  belonged 
to  the  people  were  not  infrequently  truly  sympa- 
thetic and  responsive  to  the  cry  of  the  needy 
and  to  the  wrongs  of  the  labourer,  whether  in 
bondage  or  free.  It  was  they  who  kept  the  forces 
in  operation  which  ensured  the  coming  of  the 
better  day.  The  same  phenomenon  was  witnessed 
among  the  ecclesiastics  in  France  on  the  eve  of 
the  Revolution.  The  great  dignitaries  of  the 
Church  were  all  for  the  perpetuation  of  monopoly 
and  privilege,  but  the  poor  priests  were  often 
with  the  people  in  their  dumb  yearnings  after 
some  little  share  of  the  things  which  make  life 
worth  living.  They  knew  the  facts  of  the  situa- 
tion, with  all  its  misery  and  grinding  poverty,  at 
first  hand  ;  and  it  was  not  otherwise  in  the  earlier 
and  more  silent  revolution  which  made  the  serf 
a  servant  and  prepared  the  servant  for  his  coming 
kingdom.  The  fact  that  neither  slavery  nor  serf- 
dom was  ever  formally  abolished  by  law  in  England, 
but  simply  died  out,  shows  how  gradual  was  the 
coming  of  the  dawn  and  the  rising  of  the  sun, 
and  how  silent  were  the  forces  which  led  to  the 
coming  of  the  better  era.  It  also  shows  how 
truly  spiritual  were  the  influences  which  ushered 
in  the  new  day.  There  was  no  decree  either  of 
States-General  or  Czar,  but  the  spreading  of  the 
light  of  the  gospel  of  the  grace  of  God  in  Christ. 
It  in  no  way  diminishes  the  claims  of  Chris- 
tianity, as  mighty  in  bringing  about  the  transition 
from  serf  to  servant,  that  as  it  was  in  the 
former  epochs  many  economic  changes  were 
taking  place  and  many  social  influences  were   at 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT   151 

work  which  also  helped  to  bring  about  the  grand 
result.  The  gospel  does  not  work  apart  from  the 
ordinary  life  and  environment  of  men,  but  through 
these,  and  God  may  be  everywhere  at  work 
although  the  eyes  which  are  holden  can  see  Him 
nowhere.  During  the  great  formative  fifteenth 
and  sixteenth  centuries  in  England,  however,  it 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  while  some  of  the 
economic  changes  were  for  the  labourer's  advan- 
tage others  of  them  only  tended  to  increase  his 
misery  and  woes.  For  instance,  the  influences 
which  led  to  arable  land  being  turned  into  sheep- 
walks,  and  thereby  threw  many  workers  out  of 
employment,  were  very  decidedly  against  the 
labourers.  This  noteworthy  change  was  probably 
due  in  the  first  instance  to  scarcity  of  labour,  and 
perhaps  also  to  the  roving,  not  to  say  vagabond, 
habits  of  those  who  were  no  longer  bound  to  the 
soil  as  serfs.  They  were  like  dogs  off  the  chain, 
although,  as  the  event  was  to  prove,  there  were 
chains  in  abundance  for  them  in  the  shape  of  cruel 
laws,  gross  and  brutal  class  prejudices,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  compelling  pangs  of  hunger  and 
the  strain  of  natural  law.  The  same  difficulty  in 
getting  suitable  labour  has  turned  arable  farms 
into  dairy  or  grazing  farms  in  our  own  time. 
Latterly,  however,  the  preference  given  to  sheep 
was  due  to  the  great  advance  in  the  value  of  wool, 
which  led  to  sheep  farming  being  developed  on  a 
large  scale.*  In  the  time  of  Henry  VIII.  rents 
were  doubled  because  of  this,  and  the  extra- 
ordinary ferocity  of  the  enactments  then  passed 
against  vagrants  is  proof  of  how  many  labourers 
had  been  turned  adrift,  to  starve  if  need  be.  Some 
*  See  Gibbins,  "  English  Social  Reformers,"  pp.  31-33. 


152      THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT 

of  these  laws  practically  amounted  to  a  re-enact- 
ment of  serfdom,  but  no  legislation  could  put  the 
hands  back  on  the  dial  of  time  for  long.  The 
suppression  of  the  lesser  monasteries,  too,  in  the 
same  reign  added  to  the  number  of  idle  men  ;  and 
the  spirit  of  revolt  born  of  the  pangs  of  hunger 
found  partial  expression  in  the  northern  counties 
in  the  Pilgrimage  of  Grace. 

Among  the  changes,  economic  and  social,  which 
told  in  favour  of  the  labourer  there  are  at  least 
four  which  deserve  to  be  mentioned.  First  of  all 
there  was  the  growth  of  the  towns,  the  inhabitants 
of  which  had  some  semblance  of  civic  liberty  when 
there  was  bondage  everywhere  else.  These  towns 
were  all  along  strongholds  of  freedom,  and  were 
antagonistic  to  the  lawless  rule  of  the  great  land- 
owners. As  early  as  the  year  1265  towns  had  be- 
come so  important  in  England  that  Simon  de 
Montfort  summoned  representatives  from  the 
burghs  to  take  part  in  what  some  regard  as  having 
been  the  first  meeting  of  our  House  of  Commons, 
the  mother  of  Parliaments.  In  these  growing 
communities  there  was  often  urgent  need  for 
workers,  and  many  peasants  were  tempted  by 
the  prospect  of  better  wages  and  greater  liberty 
to  betake  themselves  to  them  ;  and  gradually  with 
the  growth  of  labour  in  the  towns  a  new  dis- 
tinction arose,  which  still  obtains,  between  those 
who  were  artisans  or  tradesmen  and  those  who 
were  merely  agricultural  labourers.  It  is  hardly 
fair  to  think  of  an  agricultural  labourer  as  un- 
skilled, but  there  is  still  a  gulf  fixed  between  him 
and  those  who  have  served  an  apprenticeship  to  a 
trade.  But  although  this  distinction  was  sometimes 
strongly  emphasised,  and  then,  as  now,  emphasised 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT   153 

by  workmen  against  their  fellow- workmen,  as  the 
standard  rose  for  the  workmen  in  the  towns  it 
tended  to  rise  in  the  rural  districts  too.  Not  only 
so,  but  in  the  towns,  and  especially  after  the 
Crusades,  settled  burghal  laws  were  gradually 
substituted  for  arbitrary  violence. 

Closely  akin  to  the  rise  of  the  towns,  as  far  as  its 
effects  on  labour  are  concerned,  was  the  rise  and 
progress  of  international  commerce.  That  not 
merely  led  to  a  new  importance  being  put  on  the 
worker,  it  led  to  the  introduction  of  money  rents 
and  to  the  payment  of  wages  in  money  instead 
of  by  service  or  by  barter ;  which  had  always 
tended  to  perpetuate  serfdom.  The  modern 
crusade  against  what  is  called  the  Truck  System 
was  due  to  the  recognition  of  how  real  this  ten- 
dency might  still  be.  And  be  it  noted  that  in 
England  it  meant  much  for  the  labourer  in  the 
critical  era  that  at  the  time  when  these  most  vital 
changes  were  taking  place  there  was  a  strong 
central  authority  which  was  not  wholly  on  the 
side  of  privilege.  Much  of  the  helplessness  and 
misery  of  the  German  peasants  in  their  time  of 
transition  was  due  to  the  absence  of  such  a  central 
authority  in  the  Empire,  a  state  of  affairs  which 
resulted  in  the  toilers  on  the  land  being  left  at  the 
mercy  of  the  great  irresponsible  landowners,  who 
were  insanely  jealous  of  any  interference  from 
without.  In  England,  however,  the  Black  Death 
which  was  no  respecter  of  persons,  followed  by 
the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  brought  disaster  and  death 
to  so  many  noble  families  that  by  the  time  of  the 
Tudors  nearly  all  the  nobility  were  men  who  had 
been  newly  ennobled  by  the  Crown  and  were  there- 
fore without  the  power  and  prestige,  either  as 


154      THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT 

against  the  monarchy  or  among  the  people,  which 
their  predecessors  had  enjoyed.  Nothing  makes 
for  freedom  for  labour  like  the  power  of  the 
Government  being  real  for  all  classes  alike ;  for 
that  usually  means  that  the  law  is  known  and  that 
it  is  observed. 

The  discovery  of  the  gold  and  silver  mines  in  the 
new  world  across  the  seas  had  also  a  distinct  bear- 
ing on  the  progress  of  the  labourer  in  Great 
Britain.  In  England  the  annual  value  of  land, 
which  was  fourpence  an  acre  at  the  beginning  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  had  risen  to  thirty  pence  an 
acre  at  its  close,  owing  to  the  fall  in  the  price  of 
money  through  the  influx  of  the  precious  metals. 
The  result  was  that  peasants  whose  rents  had  been 
fixed  in  money  before  1500,  in  reality  only  paid  a 
sixth  or  an  eighth  of  the  former  rents  a  century 
later.  That,  of  course,  benefited  those  alone  who 
had  held  to  the  land ;  and  although  agriculture  was 
still  the  foremost  industry,  there  had  been  a  ten- 
dency to  sell  small  holdings  and  either  work  on  the 
land  for  wages  or  crowd  into  the  towns  for  the 
sake  of  the  advantages,  real  or  imaginary,  to  be 
got  there.  Large  farms  steadily  took  the  place  of 
the  little  peasant  holdings,  just  as  during  the  latter 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century  large  factories  took 
the  place  in  Britain  of  the  old  weavers'  shops  where 
the  worker  often  owned  both  his  workshop  and  his 
house,  the  two  not  infrequently  being  one ;  and 
whatever  economic  gains  resulted  from  these 
changes  both  alike  meant  loss  as  well. 

And  thus  it  was  that  in  the  midst  of  many  subtle 
and  far-reaching  changes,  the  significance  of  which 
was  not  appreciated  at  the  time,  the  English 
labourer  moved  out  of  medisevalism  and  serfdom 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT   155 

into  the  first  stages  of  a  system  which  in  many 
essential  respects  was  both  sadly  and  happily  not 
unlike  our  own.  For  the  most  part  the  birth  of 
liberty  has  been  a  long-drawn  agony,  and  already 
in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  we  have 
to  deplore  the  existence  of  evils  which  have  not 
been  altogether  removed  even  yet,  but  which 
must  be  removed  if  the  ideal  is  ever  to  be  realised 
and  the  labourer  is  to  find  his  true  blessedness 
in  his  work  and  to  get  his  rightful  place  in  the 
evolution  of  the  State.  The  renaissance  in 
letters,  the  reformation  of  religion,  and  the 
new  commercial  system  were  closely  associated 
with  each  other,  not  only  in  time  but  as  springing 
from  common  sources.  A  new  spirit  of  inquiry 
was  everywhere  abroad  and  was  telling  on 
men's  thoughts  and  actions  all  round;  on  their 
thoughts  about  the  world  in  which  they  found 
themselves ;  on  their  thoughts  about  God 
and  their  relation  to  Him;  and  on  their 
thoughts  about  their  rights  and  duties  in  the 
social  and  economic  realm.  There  was  a  new 
readiness  to  embark  on  adventure  in  search  of 
new  worlds  alike  in  the  realm  of  nature  and  in 
the  realms  of  the  spirit ;  in  morals  and  religion ; 
in  philosophy  and  science.  But  while  religion 
was  only  one  realm  out  of  many  in  which  the 
new  spirit  was  at  w^ork,  and  only  one  of  the 
mighty  influences  which  were  stirring  men's  lives, 
its  influence  was  different  in  kind  from  that  of  any 
other.  It  went  deeper  down  and  rose  higher 
up ;  and  after  all  a  man  is  not  many  but  one ; 
and  when  religion  is  truly  at  work  in  his  life  it 
must  tell  all  round.  We  would  fain  be  able  to 
claim  even  more  than  we  honestly  can  as  due  to 


156      THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT 

its  healing,  regenerating  influence  while  modern 
Europe  was  taking  shape,  but  it  is  something  to 
find  a  writer  like  Lecky,  who  if  he  had  prejudices 
was  not  prejudiced  in  favour  of  the  Evangel, 
declaring  that  "the  great  characteristic  of  Chris- 
tianity and  the  proof  of  its  Divinity  is  that  it 
has  been  the  main  source  of  the  moral  develop- 
ment of  Europe,"*  and  we  shall  never  get  at 
the  inwardness  of  the  labour  movement  unless 
we  see  that  every  step  forward  has  been  a  moral 
advance  and  due  therefore  directly  or  indirectly  to 
the  work  of  Christ  and  His  Gospel  in  the  hearts 
of  men.  It  is  not,  of  course,  possible  to  trace, 
in  order,  all  the  different  stages  in  the  upward 
movement,  and  still  less  is  it  possible  to  dis- 
entangle all  the  forces  which  were  at  work  and 
show  at  each  point  what  the  contribution  of 
Christianity  to  the  grand  result  actually  was. 

It  is  necessary,  too,  to  bear  in  mind  all  through 
that  if  we  think  of  the  movement  as  a  rising 
tide  creeping  surely  up,  if  often  very  slowly,  that 
there  have  been  many  ebbing  waves  which  seemed 
to  take  the  labourer  far  out  again  to  the  open 
sea  of  oppression  and  misery.  But  all  the  while, 
to  change  the  figure,  the  leaven  was  working  in 
spite  of  every  hindrance  and  every  reactionary 
influence,  and  the  truth  of  God  was  telling  in 
men's  minds,  and  even  more  so  on  their  hearts. 
From  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  an 
epoch  when  so  many  conflicting  and  revolutionary 
forces  were  at  work   all  over  Europe   as   well  as 

*  Professor  Gwatkin,  too,  in  his  recent  ' '  Early  Church 
History  to  a.d.  313,"  says  that  the  critical  study  of  history 
makes  it  abundantly  clear  that  modern  civilisation  owes 
everything  toJChristianity. 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT   157 

in  America,  the  British  Legislature  finally  aban- 
doned its  vain  attempts  to  compel  labourers  to 
enter  into  involuntary  service  and  set  itself  instead 
to  regulate  and  enforce  contracts  which  had  been 
entered  into — in  theory,  that  is,  freely  entered  into 
— between  masters  and  their  servants.  Various 
Acts  of  Parliament,  extending  from  1746  to  1823, 
set  forth  the  penalties  incurred  by  workers  who 
failed  to  keep  the  bargains  into  which  they  had 
entered  more  or  less  freely  and  intelligently  ;  and 
once  again  attempts  to  hinder  fresh  outgoings  of 
the  new  spirit  enable  us  to  form  some  estimate 
of  how  that  spirit  was  manifesting  itself  and 
stirring  up  the  enmity  and  alarm  of  the  capitalists 
and  rulers.  For  unfortunately  there  was  one 
grievous  blot  on  all  these  laws,  a  blot  which  more 
than  aught  else  is  responsible  for  the  suspicion 
which  still  lingers  in  the  minds  of  many,  and  is 
not  wholly  without  justification,  that  alike  in 
legislation  and  administration  the  law  has  a 
bias,  and  that  even  in  the  courts  of  justice  that 
bias  is  always  on  the  master's  side  and  against 
the  servant.  *  Breach  of  contract  by  a  servant 
w^as  treated  all  through  these  years  as  a  criminal 
offence,  whereas  breach  of  contract  by  a  master 
was  looked  on  as  no  more  than  a  civil  wrong.  It 
is  almost  incredible  that  it  was  not  till  1869  that 

*  On  page  242  of  his  ' '  Short  History  "  Green  tells  how  in  con- 
nection with  the  application  of  the  Statute  of  Labourers  the 
ingenuity  of  the  lawyers,  who  were  employed  as  stewards  of 
each  manor,  was  recklessly  exercised  in  cancelling  on  grounds 
of  informality  maniunissions  and  exemptions  which  had 
passed  without  question,  and  in  bringing  back  the  villein  and 
the  serf  into  a  bondage  from  which  they  held  them- 
selvea  freed. 


158      THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT 

this  remnant  of  feudalism  and  barbarism  was 
finally  swept  away  from  our  Statute  Book,  and 
master  and  servant  were  at  last  put  on  the  same 
footing  before  the  law.  Had  the  bias  been  the 
other  way  it  would  not  have  been  quite  so  absurd, 
seeing  that  the  masters  had  all  the  advantages  of 
education  and  refinement  and  social  influence, 
denied  to  the  servants.  But  it  was  quite  otherwise  ; 
a  fact  which  emphasises  the  tenacity  with  which 
the  lawmakers  clung  to  all  their  privileges  in  the 
days  when  all  legislation  and  all  administration 
were  vested  in  the  landowners  and  capitalists. 

The  same  bias  and  tenacity  alone  can  explain  the 
long  struggle  which  was  waged  by  the  Legislature 
and  the  authorities  against  the  formation  of  Trade 
Unions.  As  has  already  been  pointed  out,  workers 
had  discovered  as  early  as  the  fourteenth  century 
in  England  that  there  was  little  likelihood  of  their 
rights  being  recognised  or  of  their  being  allowed 
to  make  any  adequate  use  of  their  new  freedom 
as  the  bonds  of  serfdom  fell  from  their  limbs, 
unless  through  combination  with  each  other.  Yet 
such  combinations,  in  many  ways  so  natural  and 
necessary,  were  treated  as  illegal  amongst  the 
freest  people  in  Europe  until  a  period  far  less  than 
a  century  ago.  And  as  was  inevitable  the  Unions 
became  secret  societies,  which  often  did  things 
truly  lawless  and  illegal  and  provided  that  sort  of 
justification  for  the  harsh  and  stupid  laws  which 
were  passed  against  them  which  such  laws  so 
seldom  fail  to  provide  for  themselves.  Long  after 
the  ruling  classes  had  recognised  in  theory  that 
the  labourer  was  a  citizen  of  the  realm,  with  clearly 
defined  rights  which  he  was  entitled  to  exercise, 
they  persisted  in  treating  him  as  a  child  in  respect 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT   159 

to  labour  combinations,  and  viewed  acts  of  his 
which  were  altogether  proper  and  innocent  as  if 
they  were  treasonable  and  a  menace  to  the  safety 
of  the  State.  Just  as  the  serf  was  often  looked  on 
as  if  he  were  only  a  slave  after  all,  the  free 
labourer  or  servant  was  often  treated  as  if  he 
were  only  a  serf.  His  chain  might  be  longer 
than  before,  but  he  was  still  thought  of  as  wearing 
a  chain,  and  as  requiring  to  be  kept  in  subjection. 

In  the  dreary  and  weary  years  of  suspicion  in 
which  the  eighteenth  century,  that  era  of  reaction 
and  moderatism,  drew  to  its  close,  the  Reign  of 
Terror  in  France  gave  birth  to  another  Reign  of 
Terror  on  this  side  of  the  English  Channel. 

Fear  joined  hands  with  folly  to  goad  on  the  rulers 
of  Britain,  who  indeed  needed  little  goading,  to 
persist  in  their  vain  endeavours  to  prevent  the 
combination  of  those  who  could  not  keep  from 
combining  even  if  they  had  wished  to  do  so.  No  laws 
are  so  cruel  or  callous  as  those  w^hich  are  inspired 
by  terror  or  panic,  and  in  these  dreadful  days  the 
Habeas  Corpus  Act  was  suspended,  the  right  of 
public  meeting  restricted,  and  prosecution  after 
prosecution  was  directed  against  the  Press.  In 
Scotland,  too,  where  the  worst  effects  of  the  terror 
of  the  rulers  were  seen,  a  band  of  young  and 
ardent  Whigs,  whose  only  offence  was  the  advocacy 
of  parliamentary  reform,  were  sentenced  to  trans- 
portation, and  one  brutal  judge  openly  lamented 
that  the  practice  of  torture  in  sedition  cases  had 
fallen  into  disuse.  In  spite  of  the  efforts  of 
privilege  and  ignorance,  however,  the  revolution 
took  place  on  this  side  of  the  Channel  as  well  as  on 
the  other,  and  a  new  era  began  for  Britain  as  well 
for  France.     The  period  which  was  ushered  in  by 


160      THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT 

the  nineteenth  century,  that  era  of  revival  and 
reform,  was  to  be  one  of  marvellous  expansion, 
invention,  and  change ;  a  period  in  which  new  light 
was  to  burst  forth  on  every  hand  alike  in  science 
and  philosophy,  in  politics  and  religion,  and  in 
connection  with  labour  as  much  as  anywhere.  Yet 
for  a  while,  and  especially  after  the  long  Napoleonic 
wars  had  come  to  an  end,  there  came  one  of  the 
blackest  periods  through  which  labour  in  these 
kingdoms  has  ever  had  to  pass.*  The  labourer 
was  quite  unable  to  adapt  himself  all  at  once  to 
the  new  conditions ;  and  he  was  not  allowed  to 
adapt  himself  as  fully  as  he  might  have  done. 
The  old  state  of  affairs  with  its  many  mitigations 
of  a  kindly  sort  was  gone  for  ever,  and  now  the 
gospel  of  laissez  faire,  the  evangel  according  to 
Adam  Smith,  was  expected  to  bring  in  the  social 
millennium  and  make  all  things  new  in  heaven  and 
on  earth.  But  all  the  while  by  means  of  its  labour 
laws  the  State  was  doing  its  best  to  prevent  the 
labourer  from  participating  in  the  benefit  of  the 
vast  changes  which  were  taking  place.  According 
to  the  new  evangel,  every  one  was  to  find  his  own 
level  just  as  water  does  by  the  operation  of 
natural  law ;  but  all  the  while  the  water  was  being 
dammed  up  and  artificial  barriers  were  everywhere 
reared  or  maintained  which  kept  the  workers 
from  their  inheritance.  They  had  lost  the  casual 
benefits   of  the   old    regime,   where   practice  was 

*  In  the  seventeenth  century  the  average  daily  wages  of 
an  agricultural  laboiu-er  in  England  was  lOjd.,  and  the 
average  price  of  corn  38s.  2d.  During  the  first  sixty  years 
of  the  eighteenth  century  the  corresponding  figiu*es  were 
Is.  and  32s.  This  progress,  however,  was  not  continued 
into  the  nineteenth  century. 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT   161 

sometimes  kindlier  than  theory,  and  were  hindered 
from  reaping  the  benefits  of  the  new  regime,  with 
the  result  that  even  yet  we  have  not  wholly  re- 
covered from  the  infinite  hurt  which  was  then 
done  to  labour  in  these  islands.  When  those  in 
power  either  in  the  State  or  in  industry  reduce  the 
relations  of  capital  and  labour  to  a  kind  of  civil 
war  they  need  hardly  be  surprised  if  a  spirit  of 
internecine  strife  is  begotten  which  cannot  be 
quickly  exorcised,  even  when  the  better  day  has 
dawned.* 

And  it  was  inevitable  that  that  better  day 
should  soon  begin  to  break.  It  w^as  not  possible 
that  a  condition  of  things  so  suicidal  could  last 
long,  especially  among  Anglo-Saxons  with  their 
genius  for  government,  and  with  the  spirit  of  the 
brotherhood  of  men  spreading  everywhere.  New 
intellectual  theories  of  social  equality  spread 
everywhere  to  combat  the  conviction  of  many  who 
were  good  and  kindly  at  heart,  that  it  was  only 
by  stern  adherence  to  the  new  political  economy, 
which     was    more     sacred     to    them    than    the 

*  "We  may  grant  to  the  individualist  that  the  '  letting- 
alone'  policy  would  result  in  equilibrium  of  a  kind.  Famine, 
if  Government  does  not  '  interefere,'  will  reduce  over-popula- 
tion ;  and  the  single  spasm  of  acute  suffering  may  conceivably 
be  better  than  long-continued  starvation.  An  epidemic,  too, 
will  weed  out  weaklings.  But  it  is  far  from  evident  that 
'  natural '  equilibrium  will  be  the  best  possible.  It  may  not 
even  be  tolerable.  That  we  are  one  another's  rivals  is  part 
of  the  truth,  but  not  the  whole.  The  other  half  of  the  truth 
teaches  that  we  are  members  one  of  another.  Infection  may 
seize  on  the  fittest :  epidemic  may  slay  or  maim  the  healthy. 
It  is  our  duty  and  our  personal  need  to  ask  for  a  humanly 
and  Christianly  tolerable  equilibrium"  (Professor  R.  Mackin- 
tosh, "  Christian  Ethics,"  p.  161). 
Christianity  and  Labour.  12 


162      THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT 

Decalogue,  that  every  one  could  truly  come  to  his 
own.  No  laws  and  no  ignorance  could  per- 
manently deprive  the  workers  of  their  rights  as 
free  citizens  in  a  land  which  was  comparatively  free 
and  was  becoming  freer  as  the  years  passed  by. 

A  decisive  step  forward  was  taken  in  1824 
and  1825  when  all  combinations  of  workers  were 
declared  legal  which  sought  to  settle  trade  affairs 
without  any  violent  interference  with  those  who 
refused  to  join  them.  Only  such  combinations  as 
aimed  at  other  than  peaceful  methods  of  interfer- 
ing with  masters  in  the  use  of  their  capital  and  in 
the  processes  of  manufacture  were  to  be  deemed 
illegal  subsequent  to  that  date.  And  from  the 
very  first  the  results  of  this  modified  recognition 
of  the  right  of  combination  were  good.  As  early 
as  1838  a  Parliamentary  Committee  found  that 
there  had  been  less  direct  lawlessness  and  reckless 
crime  during  times  of  strike  since  the  Unions  had 
been  recognised.  Just  in  proportion  as  the 
workers  were  allowed  to  act  openly  as  well  as 
unitedly  did  the  old  savagery  disappear.  Since 
then  the  progress  has  been  steady,  but  not  till 
quite  recently  did  the  law  altogether  cease  to  put 
a  premium  on  discontent  and  lawlessness.  In  1859, 
for  example,  eight  miners,  six  of  them  Primitive 
Methodists  and  men  of  blameless  lives,  were 
sentenced  to  two  months'  imprisonment  for  going 
on  strike  against  gross  and  intolerable  wrongs 
because  they  had  failed  to  give  due  notice.  The 
position  of  affairs  now  is  as  it  ought  to  be,  that 
Trade  Unions  may  act  in  restraint  of  trade  so  long 
as  they  do  not  contravene  the  ordinary  law  of  the 
land.  No  agreement  by  two  or  more  persons  to 
do  or  procure  to  be  done  any  act  in  contemplation 


THE  LABOUEER  AS  A  SERVANT   163 

or  furtherance  of  a  trade  dispute  between  masters 
and  workmen  is  any  longer  indictable  as  an  offence 
if  such  an  act  by  one  person  would  not  be  punish- 
able as  a  crime.  The  only  exceptions  are  in  con- 
nection with  such  public  monopolies  and  necessities 
as  the  supply  of  water  or  gas ;  and  these  are 
manifestly  the  exceptions  which  prove  the   rule. 

During  the  last  decade  decisions  were  given  in 
the  law  courts  which  rendered  it  doubtful  whether 
the  law  was  quite  as  far  advanced  as  had  been 
supposed,  and  also  revived  the  bitter  and  injurious 
conviction  in  many  minds  that  what  is  given  to 
labour  is  given  with  a  grudge,  and  subject  to  every 
possible  discount  in  actual  application  and  adminis- 
tration. But  subsequent  legislation  has  happily 
cleared  away  these  doubts  and  made  it  perfectly 
clear  even  to  the  judges  that  nothing  which  would 
not  otherwise,  and  in  itself,  be  criminal  can  be  held  to 
be  criminal  when  done  by  a  combination  of  workers. 
Some  have  held,  indeed,  that  the  latest  legislation 
regarding  Trade  Unions  and  trade  disputes  goes, 
wittingly  or  unwittingly,  even  further  than  that, 
and  in  reality  puts  the  Unions  in  a  position  of 
independence  of  the  ordinary  law ;  but  it  is  per- 
fectly certain  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  new 
legislation  which  will  work  out  in  that  way. 
There  are  always  plenty  of  barriers  and  restric- 
tions to  prevent  the  labouring  classes  from 
advancing  too   rapidly. 

Looking  back  over  the  course  of  events  which 
have  led  us  as  a  nation  to  this  happy  termination 
of  a  long  and  bitter  conflict,  it  may  be  remarked 
that  the  injustice  must  have  been  real  indeed,  and 
the  case  for  labour  strong  indeed,  when  the  work 
of  amending  the  combination  laws  was  begun  by 


164      THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT 

an  unreformed  House  of  Commons ;  although  it 
was  reserved  for  enfranchised  labour  to  complete 
it.  As  Adam  Smith  truly  declares,  in  former  days 
whenever  the  legislature  attempted  to  regulate 
the  differences  between  masters  and  servants,  the 
masters  were  always  its  counsellors.  For  long 
centuries  it  was  with  the  labour  laws,  as  it  was 
with  the  land  law^s,  the  lawmakers  were  those  who 
were  most  deeply  interested  in  maintaining  every 
abuse,  in  preserving  every  privilege,  and  in  pro- 
longing the  subjection  of  those  who  served.  It 
seemed  to  them  to  be  natural  and  right  that 
things  should  be  as  they  ever  had  been,  and  that 
the  rulers  should  remain  in  the  ascendant ;  nor  is 
anything  more  cynical  than  the  denunciation  of 
Labour  Members  of  Parliament  as  class  Members, 
and  therefore  objectionable,  by  those  who  have 
never  failed  to  use  every  iota  of  their  power  to 
promote  their  own  personal  ends.  Indeed,  it  was 
only  through  a  certain  antagonism  which  grew 
up  between  the  great  landowners  and  the 
great  capitalist  employers  of  labour  that  labour 
came  to  its  own  in  legislation  as  it  has  done  in 
recent  years.  Not  that  there  have  been  no  other 
voices  save  those  of  selfishness  to  be  heard  in  the 
long  strife.  Freedom  has  never  been  quite  left 
without  its  witnesses,  and  there  have  always  been 
some  who  rose  above  the  prejudices  of  their  class 
and  sought  the  well-being  of  the  State,  so  that  the 
best  has  actually  survived  in  the  weary  struggle. 
The  servant  who  was  once  a  serf  has  now  become 
an  employee,  and  is  referred  to  in  modern  legisla- 
tion as  a  workman  and  not  as  a  servant,  as  if  to 
remove  every  trace  of  what  is  servile  even  from 
the  description  of   his   relation  to   his   employer. 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT   165 

The  master  has  followed  the  owner  into  the  limbo 
of  the  obsolete,  and  now  only  the  employer  remains 
in  the  labour  realm. 

A  deeply  interesting  feature  of  this  period,  dur- 
ing which  the  servant  became  an  employee,  which 
ought  not  to  be  overlooked,  is  the  importance 
which  came  to  be  put  on  the  labour  of  women 
and  children,  and  the  legislation  which  grew  out 
of  it  and  its  sad  abuses.  The  growth  of  the 
factory  system  along  with  such  inventions  as 
those  of  Arkwright  gave  rise  to  many  occupations 
in  which  physical  strength  was  not  of  primary 
importance,  and  where  women  and  children  could 
do  the  work  as  well  as  men,  and  for  far  less  re- 
muneration. Under  the  old  apprentice  system, 
regulated  by  law  in  the  time  of  Queen  Elizabeth, 
masters  had  had  an  almost  absolute  power  over  the 
children  entrusted  to  them,  and  once  again  customs 
and  laws  were  applied  to  new  circumstances  which 
had  never  been  imagined  when  they  were  first 
introduced,  and  another  ebb  tide  swept  over  the 
land.  It  is  one  of  the  most  pathetic  features  of 
the  history  of  labour  that  every  new  advance  for 
the  many  has  meant  retrogression  for  the  few.  As 
it  was  when  the  serfdom  which  lifted  up  the  slaves 
dragged  back  some  who  had  become  free,  so  it  was 
in  England  a  century  ago.  Many  of  the  children 
on  whom  the  brunt  thus  fell  by  the  application  of 
laws  to  circumstances  to  which  they  did  not  pro- 
perly apply,  and  whose  conditions,  worse  many  a 
time  than  those  of  negro  slaves,  have  been  set 
forth  in  "  Oliver  Twist "  and  other  tales,  were 
parish  apprentices.  The  law  at  that  period  pro- 
vided that  the  children  of  paupers — and  there  were 
extraordinary   numbers    in    receipt    of    parochial 


166      THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT 

relief  in  these  days — could  be  apprenticed  out  by 
the  overseers,  with  the  consent  of  two  justices, 
till  they  were  twenty-one,  to  such  persons  as  were 
thought  fitting.  Manufacturers  on  their  part  were 
entitled  to  take  such  children  as  apprentices. 
When,  therefore,  the  new  cotton  mills  arose  with 
their  demand  for  cheap  labour,  this  apprentice 
system  was  at  hand  to  supply  the  demand,  and  the 
most  inhuman  practices  resulted.  An  additional 
aggravation  of  the  situation  was  due  to  the  fact 
that  before  the  invention  of  the  steam  engine  the 
mills  in  which  the  children  wrought  were  located 
beside  rivers  and  streams,  often  in  out-of-the-way 
places,  and  the  bitter  cry  of  the  outraged  little 
ones  was  long  in  reaching  the  ears  of  the  public. 
Writing  in  his  diary  in  1811,  Sir  Samuel  Romilly 
says  that  it  was  a  common  practice  for  populous 
parishes  in  London  to  send  children  away  in 
large  numbers  to  the  mills  in  Lancashire  and 
Yorkshire,  and  that  the  children,  who  were  sent 
off  in  wagons,  were  as  much  lost  for  ever  to  their 
parents  as  if  they  had  been  sent  off  to  the  West 
Indies.  He  adds  that  he  knew  of  cases  in  which 
bankrupt  employers  had  as  many  as  two  hundred 
apprentices  in  their  service,  who  had  just  to  be 
handed  over  to  the  nearest  poorhouse  when  the 
mills  stopped.*  At  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century  tradition  avers  that  William  Pitt,  in  reply 
to  a  deputation  of  manufacturers  who  had  come  to 
him  with  the  perennial  cry  that  under  the  existing 
commercial  conditions  they  were  no  longer  able  to 
compete  with  the  foreigners,  used  the  terrible 
words,  so  fraught  with  mischief  and  woe,  "  take  the 

*  See  his  Memoirs,  vol.  ii.  p.  188. 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT   167 

children,"  and,  whether  he  said  that  or  not,*  they 
took  them  and  continued  to  take  them.  As  early 
as  1802,  however,  the  Legislature  had  to  intervene, 
and  a  Bill  was  passed  "  for  the  preservation  of  the 
health  and  morals  of  apprentices  employed  in 
cotton  and  other  mills  and  factories."  The  im- 
mediate cause  of  the  passing  of  this  Bill  was  the 
fearful  spread,  throughout  the  factory  district  of 
Manchester,  of  epidemic  disease,  which  made 
dreadful  havoc  among  the  youthful  labouring 
population  on  account  of  their  scanty  mode  of 
living  and  their  peculiar  way  of  working.  How 
dreadful  the  condition  of  those  little  apprentice 
slaves  was  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that  it 
was  long  before  the  provisions  of  this  Act,  such  as 
they  were,  could  be  made  operative  ;  and  that  they 
consisted  mainly  in  demanding  that  the  day's  work 
should  not  exceed  twelve  hours  ;  that  each  appren- 
tice should  have  two  suits  of  clothes,  one  to  be  new 
each  year ;  and  that  the  works  should  be  white- 
washed regularly,  and  a  sufficient  number  of 
windows  provided.  Nine  years  later,  in  1811,  we 
find  Sir  Robert  Peel  arguing  in  favour  of  this 
fearful  system,  or  at  any  rate  arguing,  after  the 
manner  of  such  prejudiced  theorists, , against  any 
interference  with  it.  He  declared  that  it  would 
be  highly  unjust  to  prevent  a  man  from  taking  as 

*  See  Martensen  ("Christian  Ethics,"  vol.  iii.  p.  144), 
who  probably  got  the  story  from  Michelet,  the  French  his- 
torian. While  there  is  no  record  that  Pitt  used  these  words, 
there  are  terrible  records  in  the  Blue  Books  from  1802  till  1847 
that  the  manufacturers  acted  as  if  he  had.  Many  details, 
almost  incredible  now,  and  infinitely  shameful  for  all  who 
were  then  in  power,  are  given  by  Gibbins  in  his  "English 
Social  Reformers." 


168   THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT 

many  apprentices  as  he  thought  proper,  and  that 
it  was  the  happiest  thing  possible  for  many  of  the 
children  to  be  removed  from  their  former  con- 
nections.* Another  speaker  in  the  same  discussion 
objected  to  the  apprentice  system  being  interfered 
with  because  that  must  necessarily  raise  the  price 
of  labour  and  enhance  the  price  of  cotton  goods. 
Such  utterances  enable  us  to  measure  after  a 
fashion  what  a  century  has  wrought  in  all  classes 
in  the  community.  In  1816,  however,  we  find  that 
even  the  manufacturers  recognised  that  something 
would  have  to  be  done,  and  Sir  Robert  Peel  moved 
for  a  Committee  to  inquire  further  into  the  system, 
and  said  that  unless  the  tendency  of  congregated 
labour  under  the  factory  system  in  large  towns  to 
give  rise  to  perils  and  abuses  could  be  corrected  by 
decisive  legislation,  the  great  mechanical  inventions 
which  were  the  glory  of  the  age  would  be  a  curse 
rather  than  a  blessing  to  society.  Following  on 
this  the  years  1819,  1825,  1831,  and  1833  each  saw 
an  Act  passed  which  marked  a  step  in  advance. 
The  last  of  these  four  measures,  which  was  asso- 
ciated with  the  name  of  Lord  Ashley,  afterwards 
the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  and  honourably  identified 
with  many  a  like  reform,  provided  for  the  prohibi- 
tion of  the  employment  of  children  under  nine 
years  of  age.  From  nine  to  thirteen  they  were 
allowed  to  work  only  forty-eight  hours  a  week, 
and  from  thirteen  to  eighteen  they  were  restricted 
to  sixty-eight  hours.     That  hours  so  shameful  as 

*  Romilly's  Memoirs,  vol.  ii.  p.  204.  Nothing  was  done 
then,  but  four  years  later,  in  1815,  a  Bill  to  remedy  some  of 
the  abuses  passed  the  Commons,  but  was  thrown  out  by  the 
Lords,  upon  what  Sir  Samuel  Romilly  described  as  some  very 
absurd  objections. 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT   169 

these  for  tiny  infants  of  nine  should  have  marked 
an  advance  is  another  indication  of  the  enormity 
of  the  evil  and  of  how  far  we  have  travelled  since 
1833.  Provision  was  also  made  under  that  Act  for 
the  education  of  factory  children  and  for  the 
appointment  of  inspectors  to  see  that  the  law  was 
carried  out  in  its  entirety.* 

Since  that  time  many  Committees  have  dealt 
with  this  and  kindred  problems,  and  many  Acts 
have  been  passed  to  remove  the  evils  under  which 
the  weakest  in  the  nation  were  left  to  groan  so 
long.  The  hours  of  labour  for  all  young  people  and 
women  workers  have  been  greatly  reduced  ;  pro- 
vision has  been  made  for  holidays ;  dangerous 
employments  have  been  specially  dealt  with  ;  and 
dangerous  machinery  must  be  securely  fenced. 
There  are  now  women  inspectors,  and  provision  for 
compensation  for  injuries  received  in  the  course  of 
employment  has  been  made.  Much  has  also  been 
done  in  connection  with  the  various  educational 
Acts  to  prevent  the  children  being  robbed  of  their 
childhood  and  their  birthright  either  through  the 
neglect  and  selfishness  of  their  parents  or  through 
the  greed  of  those  who  wish  to  exploit  their 
labour.  And  for  us  who  wish  to  trace  these 
changes  back  to  their  source  and  to  see  whose 
hand  it  was  which  threw  the  healing  salt  into  the 
springs,  there  cannot  but  be  grateful  recognition 
of  the  fact  that  no  one  did  more  to  rouse  the 
nation  and  to  bring  in  the  better  day  than  Mrs. 
Browning,  whose  "  Cry  of  the  Children  "  touched  so 
many  hearts  and  ought  never  to  be  forgotten.     It 

*  Since  then  the  inspector  has  multiplied  in  the  land,  and  it 
is  very  significant  that  in  some  occupations  employers  and 
employees  agree  in  regarding  him  as  the  common  foe. 


170      THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT 

sets  the  situation  before  us  in  a  lurid  and  haunt- 
ing light,  and  those  who  think  it  in  any  way 
over-done  know  little  of  the  terrible  and  shameful 
facts  : — 

"Do  ye  hear  the  children  weepmg,  O  my  brothers, 
Ere  the  sorrow  comes  with  years  ? 
They     are     leaning     their     yomig    heads     against    their 
mothers, 

And  thnt  cannot  stop  their  tears. 
The  young  lambs  are  bleating  in  the  meadows, 

The  young  birds  are  chirping  in  the  nest, 
The  young  fawns  are  playing  with  the  shadows, 

The  young  flowers  are  blowing  toward  the  west — 
But  the  young,  young  children,  O  my  brothers, 

They  are  weeping  bitterly ! 
They  are  weeping  in  the  playtime  of  the  others, 
In  the  country  of  the  free. 

'  For  oh  I '  say  the  children,   '  We  are  weary 
And  we  cannot  run  or  leap  ; 
If  we  cared  for  any  meadows,  it  were  merely 

To  drop  down  in  them  and  sleep. 
Our  knees  tremble  sorely  in  the  stooping. 

We  fall  upon  owe  faces,  trying  to  go  ; 
And,  underneath  our  heavy  eyelids  drooping, 

The  reddest  flower  would  look  as  pale  as  snow. 
For  all  day  we  drag  our  bm-den,  tiring 

Through  the  coal-dark,  underground  ; 
Or,  all  day,  we  drive  the  wheels  of  iron 
In  the  factories,  round  and  round.' 

And  well  may  the  children  weep  before  you  ! 

They  are  weary  ere  they  run  ; 
They  have  never  seen  the  sunshine,  nor  the  glory 

Which  is  brighter  than  the  sun. 
They  know  the  grief  of  men,  without  its  wisdom  ; 

They  sink  in  man's  despair,  without  its  calm  ; 
Are  slaves,  without  the  liberty  in  Christdom, 
Are  martyrs,  by  the  pang  without  the  palm : 


THE  LABOUREK  AS  A  SERVANT   171 

Are  worn  as  if  with  age,  yet  unretrievingly 

The  harvest  of  its  memories  cannot  reap — 

Are  orphans  of  the  earthly  love  and  heavenly, 
Let  them  weep  !  let  them  weep  ! 

They  look  up  with  their  pale  and  sunken  faces. 

And  their  look  is  dread  to  see, 
For  they  mind  you  of  their  angels  in  high  places, 
With  eyes  turned  on  Deity. 
'How  long'  ?  they  say,   'how  long,'  O  cruel  nation, 
Will  you  stand,  to  move  the  world,  on  a  child's  heart, — 
Stifle  down  with  a  mailed  heel  its  palpitation. 

And  tread  onward  to  yovu*  throne  amid  the  mart? 
Our  blood  splashes  upward,  O  gold-heaper, 
And  yoxir  purple  shows  your  path  I 
But  the  child's  sob  in  the  silence  curses  deeper 
Than  the  strong  man  in  his  wrath.' " 

As  this  poem  so  clearly  shows,  the  inspiration  of 
Mrs.  Browning,  like  that  of  Lord  Shaftesbury  and 
most  of  their  fellow- workers,  was  what  she  knew 
of  the  mind  of  Christ ;  and  it  is  not  too  much  to 
claim  that  it  is  to  Him  we  owe  all  that  the  nine- 
teenth century  did  for  the  little  ones  who  were 
near  His  heart  of  love.  And  that  sends  us  back 
anew  to  see  how  far  the  Church  of  Christ  contri- 
buted to  the  progress  of  the  labourer  from  the  time 
when  he  passed  from  serfdom  until  he  became  a 
citizen  and  an  employee.  In  these  dreary  ages 
man  was  eating  of  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil,  and  was  discovering  that  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  free  education  in  the  school  of  life  ; 
but  if  we  were  to  judge  merely  from  the  official 
Church  histories  and  biographies,  even  those  of 
them  which  are  most  modern  in  their  spirit  and 
methods,  we  would  be  compelled  to  conclude  that 
during  the  centuries  when  the  labourer  was  work- 


172   THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT 

ing  out  his  redemption  in  blood  and  tears  the 
Church  was  hardly  aware  that  there  was  a  labour 
problem  at  all.  It  is  not  too  much  to  assert  that, 
judging  from  the  records,  she  was  hardly  aware 
even  that  there  were  labourers,  although  the 
peculiar  joy  of  the  Master  had  been  to  preach  the 
gospel  to  the  poor  ;  and  His  proud  claim  was  that 
the  common  people  heard  the  Word  gladly. 
Nothing,  indeed,  is  more  remarkable  in  this  con- 
nection than  the  absence  of  any  allusions  in  the 
ecclesiastical  records  to  the  social  condition  of  the 
people,  throughout  these  five  centuries  of  pitiful 
conflict  and  anguish.  There  is  enough,  often  far 
more  than  enough,  about  Synods  and  Confessions, 
about  Heresies  and  Disruptions,  sometimes  even 
about  Missions  and  Revivals ;  but  about  the  men 
and  the  women  who  were  working  out  their  salva- 
tion in  the  homes  ;  of  the  miners  and  masons,  the 
weavers  and  mechanics ;  there  is  hardly  a  trace. 
But  that  is  not  peculiar  to  Church  histories.  It 
is  nearly,  if  not  quite,  as  true  of  the  ordinary 
historians,  almost  till  our  own  day ;  although  it 
is  not,  perhaps,  quite  so  culpable  with  them.  They 
tell  about  kings  and  conspiracies,  about  battles 
and  treaties ;  but  about  the  toiling  and  often  suffer- 
ing masses  they  have  hardly  a  word  to  say.  Nor 
is  it  a  sufficient  explanation  of  this  sinister  silence 
of  the  Church  historians  that  the  divisions  which 
followed  the  Reformation  and  the  counter  Refor- 
mation brought  pre-occupation  and  loss  of  influence. 
The  wars  and  controversies  of  that  period  of  re- 
action were  certainly  engrossing  enough,  but  the 
labourer  as  such  seems  simply  to  have  been  for- 
gotten ;  surely  the  most  colossal  oversight  con- 
ceivable on  the  part  of  those  whose  chief  endeavour 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT      173 

it  was  to  vindicate  their  connection  through  the 
apostles,  who  were  working  men,  with  Christ,  who 
was  also  a  working  man.  They  did  not  get  the 
length  of  patronising  the  workman  which  some  of 
their  successors  have  attained.  They  did  not  even 
consciously  ignore  him.  They  seem  simply  to  have 
forgotten  that  he  existed. 

Yet  there  could  be  no  greater  error  than  to 
imagine  that  Christianity  was  doing  nothing  for 
the  labourer  during  these  ages,  or  that  the 
official  historians  tell  all  that  was  being  achieved 
by  those  who  were  walking  in  the  light  of  their 
Saviour  Christ.  The  best  work  of  all  has  always 
been  done  without  observation  of  men.  Chris- 
tianity had  done  much  for  the  labourer  through 
the  Reformation  itself  which  made  him  a  man 
in  a  new  sense ;  and  which  had  in  it  the  promise 
and  potency  of  all  that  has  since  been  accom- 
plished, and  of  what  has  still  to  be  accomplished. 
It  was  the  old  story  over  again  of  the  early 
ages,  as  men  saw  themselves  and  others  in  the 
new  light  as  those  for  whom  Christ  died,  and 
for  whose  salvation  He  yearned  because  they 
were  of  infinite  worth  in  His  sight.  In  England, 
it  is  true,  and  this  is  most  significant  for  the 
right  comprehension  of  the  labour  problem,  the 
Reformation  never  truly  reached  the  masses  until 
Wesley's  time ;  and  that  only  then  did  it  do  for 
the  common  people  what  it  had  already  done 
for  the  masses  in  Scotland  in  Knox's  time.  But 
just  see  what  it  did  then,  when  it  reached  the 
people  at  last.  From  that  time  onwards  the 
modern  movement  can  be  discerned,  and  there 
were  new  hopes  and  a  new  power  at  work  in  the 
land. 


174      THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT 

Professor  Thorold  Rogers  has  it  that  the  influ- 
ences then  set  in  motion  were  the  most  bene- 
ficial exerted  in  the  rural  districts  for  several 
centuries.  Mr.  Lecky,  for  his  part,  puts  it :  "It 
is  therefore,  I  think,  peculiarly  fortunate  that 
.  .  .  the  change  in  the  position  of  the  labourer  at 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  .  .  .  was  pre- 
ceded by  a  religious  revival  which  opened  a  new 
spring  of  moral  and  religious  energy  among  the 
poor,  and  at  the  same  time  gave  a  powerful 
impulse  to  the  philanthropy  of  the  rich."  Beyond 
any  question  it  was  due  to  Christianity,  as  it 
manifested  its  power  in  the  Methodist  Revival, 
that  the  labourer  in  Great  Britain  gradually  got, 
in  comparatively  peaceful  fashion,  what  the 
labourer  in  France  attained  only  through  the 
travail  of  the  Revolution  and  the  horrors  of  the 
Reign  of  Terror.  And  this  good  work  which  the 
Gospel  did  for  the  labourer  in  these  realms  in 
the  later  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  through 
the  Methodist  Revival,  was  more  than  sustained 
by  what  it  did  for  him  in  the  early  part  of  the 
nineteenth  century  through  the  wider  evangelical 
revival  which  refreshed  all  the  Churches  and  gave 
birth  to  modern  philanthropy  and  Foreign 
Missions.  It  is  true  that  we  come  then  to  what 
was  perhaps  the  blackest  hour  in  all  the  history 
of  labour  in  our  land,  a  most  miserable  era;* 
but  it  was  the  hour  before  the  dawn,  and  every- 
where we  can  see  the  gospel  doing  its  beneficent 
work  at  the  time  when  the  ferment  and  suffering 

*  Steam  power  had  led  to  the  development  of  machinery  ; 
workers  became  mere  attendants ;  minute  subdivision  of 
labour  degraded  these  attendants  into  mere  machines,  and 
the  ill-omened  overcrowding  into  g^eat  cities  had  begun. 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT   175 

which  grew  out  of  the  vast  industrial  changes 
of  that  formative  epoch  were  at  their  height. 

That  revival  more  than  any  other  was  essentially 
philanthropic,  and  it  soon  touched  the  life  of 
the  community  at  every  point.  It  provided  the 
motive  power  for  social  reform  without  which 
rhetoric,  philosophy,  and  good  intentions  have  all 
proved  in  vain.  Into  the  midst  of  the  fierce 
struggle  which  for  long  made  for  the  survival, 
not  of  the  fittest,  but  of  selfishness  and  greed, 
of  brutality  and  class  pride,  there  came  the  gospel 
of  the  grace  of  God  to  lead  men's  minds  to  great 
thoughts  and  the  practices  of  brotherhood  and 
self -surrender.  It  is  not  possible  for  us  to  imagine 
how  far  the  nation  might  have  sunk  had  not  the 
Christian  religion  made  its  power  manifest,  and  re- 
vealed its  true  spirit  and  purpose  among  all  ranks 
and  classes  at  a  time  so  momentous  and  critical. 

The  history  of  the  Primitive  Methodists  affords 
one  of  many  proofs  of  what  the  gospel  did  for 
social  and  labour  reform  in  the  early  part  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  Working  as  they  did  for  the 
most  part  in  the  rural  districts,  where  freedom  and 
independence  in  our  sense  were  unknown,  they 
wrought  wonders.*  Miners  had  then  to  toil  for 
eighteen  hours  a  day;  and  children  of  eight,  and 
even  six  years,  had  to  work  in  the  pits  for  sixteen 
hours  at  a  stretch,  and  both  alike  received  only 
a  pittance  in  return.  The  condition  of  the 
agricultural  labourers  was  in  some  respects  even 
worse.  But  when  the  gospel  came  to  them 
through  preachers  who  themselves  were  toilers, 
a  great  moral  reformation  was  effected  and  men's 

*  See  "The  Romance  of  Primitive  Methodism,"  by- 
Joseph  Ritson.     1909. 


176   THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT 

minds  were  diverted  into  the  paths  of  constitu- 
tional reform.  In  villages  where  sheer  barbarism 
had  prevailed  the  whole  moral  and  religious  tone 
was  changed,  and  there  was  intellectual  stimulus 
as  well  as  spiritual  culture.  For  of  necessity  the 
gospel  told  all  round  the  circle  of  life.  Speaking 
of  the  work  of  the  Primitive  Methodists  in  his 
own  district,  Canon  Jessopp  said :  "  They  have 
kept  up  a  school  of  music,  literature,  and  politics, 
self-supporting  and  unaided  by  dole  or  subsidy — 
above  all,  a  school  of  eloquence,  in  which  the 
lowliest  has  become  familiarised  with  the  ordinary 
rules  of  debate,  and  has  been  trained  to  express 
himself  with  directness,  vigour,  and  fluency. 
What  the  Society  of  Jesus  was  among  the  more 
cultured  classes  in  the  sixteenth  century,  what 
the  Friars  were  to  the  masses  of  the  towns 
during  the  thirteenth,  that  the  Primitive  Metho- 
dists are  in  a  fair  way  of  becoming  among  the 
labouring  classes  in  East  Anglia  in  our  own  time." 
And  the  bearings  of  this  movement  on  the 
labour  problem  were  soon  manifest,  whether  we 
look  at  it  among  the  potters  of  Staffordshire, 
the  labourers  in  the  east,  south,  and  west  of 
England,  the  factory  workers  of  Lancashire  and 
Yorkshire,  or  the  miners  of  Northumberland  and 
Durham.  Mr.  Thomas  Burt,  himself  a  shining 
instance  of  what  Christianity  may  do  for  labour, 
has  borne  eloquent  witness  to  the  clear  and 
decisive  services  rendered  by  Primitive  Methodism 
to  the  labour  movement.  Along  with  the  instinct 
of  law  and  order,  they  instilled  the  love  of 
freedom  and  the  spirit  of  democratic  government. 
From  among  the  records  in  the  House  of  Commons 
library  Mr.   Burt   has    disinterred    the    following 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT   177 

statement  about  the  parish  of  Earsdon  :  "  There 
is  no  mining  parish  within  these  two  counties, 
the  people  of  which  have  given  so  much  trouble 
to  their  employers  or  have  broken  out  into  such 
violence  as  this.  The  people  were  under  the 
influence  of  Chartist  leaders,  delegates  from  the 
colliers'  union,  and  their  local  preachers  chiefly 
of  the  Primitive  Methodists."  As  this  comes  from 
a  capitalist  source  we  may  discount  the  charge 
about  violence,  in  return  for  the  testimony  as 
to  where  the  leaders  came  from.  It  was  Christ 
who  as  of  yore  was  enabling  men  to  stand  forth 
to  lead  their  fellows  to  obtain  their  just  and 
lawful  rights.  Those  who  are  depressed  by  the 
failure  of  Christianity  in  our  time  to  solve  every 
problem  and  right  every  wrong,  here  and  now, 
should  compare  the  appalling  state  of  affairs 
which  prevailed  a  century  ago  with  what  obtains 
now,  and  reflect  what  it  means,  that  all  the 
uplift  of  the  nineteenth  century  began  in  a  wide- 
spread religious  revival.  It  is  from  the  conception 
of  personality  and  consequent  responsibility  to 
which  Christ  witnessed  that  the  rights  of  man 
have  sprung. 

As  the  century  advanced  this  river  of  life, 
which  arose  as  the  century  began,  overflowed  its 
banks,  for  God  fulfils  Himself  in  many  ways,  and 
Christianity  did  much  for  labour  through  the 
movement  more  or  less  closely  associated  with 
the  names  of  Maurice  and  Kingsley,  of  Carlyle 
and  Ruskin.  That  movement  arose  in  keen  pro- 
test against  the  atrocities  of  blank  individualism 
and  a  freedom  which  was  mainly  freedom  to 
starve  ;  and  did  much  to  inspire  the  efforts  which 
resulted    in    delivering    the     child    workers,    and 

Christianity  and  Labour.  13 


178   THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT 

making  the  mills  and  factories  more  tolerable  for 
women  workers,  to  say  nothing  of  men. 

These  thinkers,  under  the  leadership  of  Christ, 
made  the  nation  see  that  the  cash  nexus  alone 
could  never  bind  men  into  a  helpful  or  hopeful 
unity,  and  that  laissez  faire  may  end  in  the  dis- 
integration of  the  social  order  and  sheer  anarchy. 
They  taught  their  generation  that  the  wealth  of 
a  man  consists  in  the  number  of  things  he  loves 
and  blesses,  and  by  which  he  is  loved  and  blessed ; 
and  although  they  seemed  to  those  who  were 
mammon-driven  to  be  mere  dreamers,  that  was  a 
great  germinating  thought,  a  thought  of  Christ. 
It  would  not  be  easy  to  exaggerate  what  they 
did  by  way  of  saving  men  from  the  infidelity  of 
blighted  hopes  and  baffled  yearnings.  To  them, 
more  than  to  any  others,  is  it  due  that  Chris- 
tianity has  won  so  decidedly  in  the  conflict  with 
mere  empty  freedom  and  the  fetish  of  the  liberty 
of  the  individual  to  commit  suicide  if  he  pleases ; 
and  to  the  Christian  gospel  it  is  entirely  due 
that  moral  considerations  are  now  so  much  in 
the  forefront  in  all  labour  discussions.  All  that 
now  remains  to  be  done  is  to  ensure  that  they 
be  made  supreme  and  all  embracing.  Since  the 
days  when  these  forerunners  were  as  voices  cry- 
ing in  the  wilderness  a  new  attitude  to  mere 
amelioration  has  sprung  up,  and  all  social  ques- 
tions are  now  resolutely  looked  at  from  an  ethical 
viewpoint  and  dealt  with  on  an  ethical  basis.* 

*  For  Kingsley  and  Maiirice,  Carlyle  and  Ruskin  in  this 
connection,  see  Gibbins,  "English  Social  Reformers,"  pp.  155- 
224.  The  fierceness  and  bitterness  of  the  opposition  offered 
so  recently  to  much  that  is  almost  iiniversally  accepted 
now,  is  the  measure  of  th&  progress  made  since  then. 


THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT   179 

Even  in  the  dark  days  which  preceded  the 
nineteenth  century,  with  all  its  victories,  the 
leaven  of  Divine  truth  was  always  at  work,  to 
some  extent  mitigating  the  severities  of  the  lot  of 
the  labourer,  stimulating  intellectual  activities  and 
social  yearnings,  creating  a  purer  atmosphere,  and 
proclaiming  the  essential  unity  of  the  race  before 
God  in  spite  of  all  the  actual  disparities  which 
prevailed.  During  these  generations,  when  the 
still,  small  voice  could  scarcely  be  heard  above 
the  noises  of  warring  men  and  striving  theologians, 
the  gospel  gradually  provided  the  worker  with 
a  home  liker  what  we  prize  now  than  anything 
serfdom  can  ever  have  know^n,  and  brought  a  new 
tenderness  into  his  domestic  relationships.  Not 
only  was  "The  Cottar's  Saturday  Night"  written 
prior  to  the  revolutionary  epoch,  there  must  have 
been  many  a  cottar's  Saturday  night  before  it  could 
have  been  written.  And  just  as  irl  earlier  ages  a 
career  like  that  of  Cardinal  Wolsey  meant  much, 
alike  for  the  class  from  which  he  came  and  that  to 
which  he  rose,  so  in  the  later  era  such  a  story  as 
that  of  John  Bunyan,  who  from  being  a  poor  tinker 
became  a  leader  of  men,  must  have  done  much  to 
break  down  social  distinctions  and  bring  inspira- 
tion and  hope.  A  new  way,  too,  of  speaking  and 
thinking  about  the  labourer  gradually  arose.  In 
"  Old  Mortality "  Scott  made  Claverhouse  say  to 
Morton:  "There  is  a  difference,  I  trust,  between  the 
blood  of  learned  and  reverend  prelates  and  scholars, 
of  gallant  soldiers  and  noble  gentlemen,  and  the  red 
puddle  that  stagnates  in  the  veins  of  psalm-singing 
mechanics,  crack-brained  demagogues,  and  sullen 
boors ; "  but  no  one  would  speak  like  that  now.  In 
these  years,  also,  Christianity  began  to  make  some 


180   THE  LABOURER  AS  A  SERVANT 

provision  for  the  education  of  the  children  of  the 
working  man,  a  movement  which  has  probably  not 
quite  spent  itself  nor  come  to  perfection,  although 
education  for  the  children  of  the  poorest  is  now 
compulsory,  universal,  and  free.  The  gospel  was 
likewise  busy  preparing  the  workman  for  the 
place  to  which  it  was  so  soon  to  call  him  in  the 
government  of  the  nation.  The  value  of  any  evo- 
lution can  be  ascertained  only  when  the  work  has 
been  done,  and  we  cannot  appreciate  what  Christi- 
anity was  doing  in  these  years,  which  have  so  few 
annals,  except  by  emphasising  what  we  find  when 
at  length  the  light  broke.  It  was  in  the  Church 
that  the  working  man  was  taught  how  to  rule  in 
the  State  when  his  call  came.  Not  a  few  of  those 
who  have  done  most  for  the  State  and  for  the  good 
government  of  the  nation,  in  things  local  and  im- 
perial alike,  were  trained  for  service  in  the  work  of 
organisation  and  in  public  speaking  in  the  service 
of  the  Christian  Church.  Not  only  so,  but  they 
received  vastly  more  than  their  training  there.  It 
was  in  the  service  of  Christ  they  received  their 
inspiration,  and  saw  that  when  they  went  out 
into  the  wider  fields  of  social  and  political  service 
they  were  still  in  the  service  of  Christ,  if  not 
always  of  His  Church.  Christianity  is  the  imperial 
religion,  and  Christ  makes  imperial  and  imperious 
claims  on  all  who  would  truly  devote  themselves 
to  Him.  The  gospel  always  works  from  within 
outwards,  and  it  has  no  expectation  or  promise  of 
bringing  the  supreme  blessedness  to  any  man  un- 
less first  of  all  it  gives  him  its  own  new  life.  It  is 
character,  and  not  circumstances,  which  is  the  chief 
thing  ;  and  it  is  only  through  Christ  that  the  springs 
of  purity,  devotion,  and  sacrifice  can  be  renewed 
either  in  a  man  or  in  the  social  order. 


THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 

CHANGES  in  nomenclature  sometimes  indicate 
changes  in  outlook  and  temper  \rliicli  are 
too  subtle  to  be  brought  out  in  any  other  way, 
although  they  may,  nevertheless,  be  of  great 
significance.  The  disappearance  of  the  term 
servant  from  our  modern  Acts  of  Parliament  is 
such  a  change,  and  should  not  be  overlooked  in 
the  present  discussion.  Even  Divine  truth  not 
only  takes  time  to  manifest  its  meaning  and 
power,  it  reveals  itself  according  to  the  ordinary 
laws  of  growth.  The  very  success  of  the  gospel 
in  introducing  a  new  tenderness  into  the  social 
relationships  has  often  been  so  real  as  to  be  over- 
looked, so  truly  has  it  been  achieved  without 
observation  of  men.  By  silent  revolutions  it  has 
prevented  catastrophes ;  and  while  the  nation  which 
has  no  annals  may  be  happy,  the  lack  of  annals 
is  apt  to  make  it  ignore  its  best  friends  and  truest 
benefactors.  Within  recent  years  we  have  had 
Acts  dealing  with  Compensation  for  Workmen,  and 
in  the  interests  of  unemployed  workmen ;  but  the 
word  servant  seems  to  have  disappeared,  and  its 
disappearance  is  the  symbol  of  the  disappearance 
of  much  else  which  should  have  gone  ages  before. 

183 


184  THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 

Not  only  so,  but  the  French  word  errvploy^  has 
been  adopted  for  British  use  in  order  to  express 
the  new  relationship  ;  while  the  word  employer 
now  provides  a  correlative  as  the  substitute  for 
the  word  master ;  that  word  also  having  been 
banished  to  Saturn;  and  in  proportion  as  this 
change  has  been  unpremeditated  its  significance 
is  the  greater.  The  dictionary  authorities  say  that 
the  word  employee  has  not  yet  been  naturalised, 
and  that  in  French  usage  it  is  chiefly  applied  to 
clerks,  while  in  English  usage  it  is  generally  used 
to  describe  persons  employed  for  wages  or  salary 
by  a  house  of  business  or  by  the  Government. 
But  it  has  been  in  use  in  America  at  least  since 
Thoreau's  time  in  1854,  and  it  is  significant  that  it 
was  in  America  that  it  appeared  first ;  since  there 
has  always  been  a  disinclination  there  to  use  the 
words  master  and  servant  in  connection  with  free 
labour.  Doubtless  that  was  because  there,  even 
more  than  here,  the  word  servant  had  associations 
with  such  words  of  evil  import  as  serf  and  servile, 
and  might  therefore  be  resented  by  a  free  man  as 
descriptive  of  any  relationship  into  which  he  could 
enter.  Just  because  the  word  master  was  once 
used  to  describe  the  owner  of  slaves  and  to  indicate 
absolute  possession,  it  is  ill-adapted  for  use  where 
the  labourer  is  as  free  as  the  legislature,  as 
such,  can  make  him.  No  such  disability,  how- 
ever, attaches  to  the  newer  and  imported 
word  employer,  and  its  correlative  employee, 
and  to  use  them  as  they  are  commonly  used 
now  is  to  do  something  to  break  the  tyranny 
of  words,  to  clear  the  air  of  misconception  and 
prejudice,  and  to  indicate  a  noteworthy  advance  in 
the  history  of  labour.     The  Scriptural  injunction 


THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE  185 

to  call  no  man  master  has  at  length  been  literally- 
obeyed,  and  on  the  widest  scale,  and  a  new  relation 
is  certainly  indicated  by  the  new  name. 

As  is  usual  with  a  change  so  subtle,  it  came 
almost  without  comment.  Yet  it  was  the  sign  and 
seal  of  the  advent  of  a  new  era  and  a  new  spirit ; 
the  proof  that  a  silent  revolution  had  been 
wrought ;  the  indication  that  the  old  pagan  order 
of  things,  when  the  few  were  bom  to  rule  and  the 
many  were  destined  to  be  hewers  of  wood  and 
drawers  of  water  had  had  its  death-warrant 
endorsed.  It  had  been  signed  centuries  before 
by  Christ  on  the  cross.  In  the  year  1867  an  Act 
of  Parliament  was  passed  which  is  sometimes 
called  Lord  Elcho's  Act,  but  which  bears  the  title, 
The  Master  and  Servant  Act.  That  is  to  say,  the 
old  terms  in  use  for  centuries  were  still  in  use. 
But  only  eight  years  later,  in  1875  that  is,  when 
an  Act  was  passed  to  rectify  certain  defects  which 
had  been  discovered  in  the  earlier  Act,  the  amend- 
ing measure  was  called  The  Employers  and 
Workmen  Act.  The  word  employee  was  not  yet 
adopted,  although  its  correlative  was ;  but  the 
terms  master  and  servant  had  gone,  and  not  a 
voice  was  lifted  up  on  their  behalf.  Not  only  so, 
but  a  few  weeks  after  the  Act  of  1875  was  passed, 
Lord  Beaconsfield,  who  was  then  Prime  Minister, 
showed  that  he  at  least  was  alive  to  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  change,  and  saw  that  it  was  far  more 
than  verbal  merely;  for  we  find  him  remarking 
that  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  country- 
employers  and  employed  were  under  equal  laws. 
Whether  the  change  was  quite  so  great  as  that, 
effectively  at  least,  may  be  questioned,  but  the  fact 
remains  that  even  then  there  were  some  who  were 


186  THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 

alive  to  the  significance  of  the  change  which  was 
indicated  by  the  definite  adoption  and  acclimati- 
sation of  the  new  terms.  And  in  effect  Lord 
Beaconsfield  was  right  in  his  interpretation  of  the 
difference  in  terminology.  The  labourer  was  no 
longer  a  servant  before  the  law,  any  more  than  his 
employer  was  any  longer  a  master.  Both  alike 
were  now  to  be  viewed  as  citizens  with  equal 
rights  and  privileges.  This  has  still  to  be  made 
more  explicit,  but  it  was  there  implicitly  then ;  and 
although  much  has  yet  to  be  done  to  fill  in  the  con- 
tent of  the  new  relationship  so  happily  signalised, 
a  great  step  was  undoubtedly  taken  forward  when 
the  old  words  of  servile  connotation  disappeared. 

All  through  the  years  which  have  elapsed 
since  1875,  in  spite  of  occasional  lapses,  due 
to  judge-made  law  and  other  causes,  it  has  been 
made  increasingly  manifest  that  when  the  labourer 
ceased  to  be  a  servant  and  became  an  employee,  he 
had  entered  at  length  on  his  birthright  as  a  citizen 
in  a  free  land,  the  character  in  which  he  must  now 
be  consistently  viewed.  His  standing  before  the 
law  is  no  longer  that  of  a  workman,  but  that  of  a 
citizen ;  just  as  his  employer  must  now  stand  before 
the  law  as  a  citizen,  too.  The  law  no  longer  presup- 
poses that  the  labourer  is  more  than  suspect,  and 
must  prove  his  innocence ;  or  acts  as  if  its  primary 
business  were  to  act  as  whipper-in  for  the  masters 
and  to  keep  the  servant  in  due  subordination,  not  to 
say  subjection.  It  neither  interferes  with  his  rights 
as  a  citizen  nor  hampers  him  in  the  exercise  of  them; 
and  even  the  law  courts  have  for  the  most  part 
come  into  line  with  the  new  situation  and  outlook. 

Before  the  law  there  are  now  neither  em- 
ployers nor  employees,  to  say  nothing  of  masters 


THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE  187 

and  servants.  There  are  only  citizens  with  equal 
privileges  and  rights,  as  well  as  with  equal  duties, 
within  these  realms  and  in  its  government.  In- 
deed, if  this  statement  has  in  any  way  to  be 
qualified,  it  would  require,  according  to  some,  to 
be  added  that  any  bias  there  is  now  is  against 
the  employer  and  in  favour  of  the  employee  since 
the  legislation  in  1906  regarding  labour  disputes 
and  the  rights  of  Trade  Unions  in  connection 
therewith.  That  legislation,  say  some,  more  than 
undid  the  wrong  which  had  been  done  to  the  cause 
of  labour  by  the  Taff  Vale  and  other  decisions.  But 
such  a  feeling  is  probably  due  to  the  repugnance 
which  those  who  have  had  the  upper  hand  for 
long  centuries  cannot  but  feel  towards  perfect 
equality.  This  spirit  comes  out  very  strongly  in 
America  in  all  the  dealings  of  the  politicians  with 
the  negroes ;  and  the  same  attitude  usually  pre- 
vents employers  paying  the  full  journeyman's 
wage  to  their  own  apprentices  when  their  time  of 
training  is  at  an  end.  They  have  usually  to  go 
elsewhere  first  for  recognition,  and  become  literal 
journeymen.  We  are  still  far  from  a  state  of  affairs 
where  there  is  any  bias  in  favour  of  the  workman; 
and  there  is  a  great  dead  weight  of  tradition  and 
prejudice  and  class  pride  still  to  be  overcome 
before  there  can  even  be  genuine  equality ;  but  the 
fact  that  such  a  feeling  prevails  in  certain  quarters 
shows  how  real  the  change  in  the  labourer's  favour 
has  been  ;  and  that  on  the  part  of  the  nation  and 
legislature  there  is  at  least  an  earnest  desire  to  get 
rid  of  any  bias  against  him  which  has  hitherto 
vitiated  either  our  legislation  or  our  administra- 
tion, local  or  imperial. 
That  the  workman  has  now  the  franchise  has 


188  THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 

of  course,  brought  about  a  vast  difference  in  the 
modern  State,  even  if  it  may  not  help  a  man 
very  much  that  he  has  a  vote  if  he  cannot  get 
work  by  means  of  which  he  may  earn  his  daily 
bread.  The  suffrage  can  hardly  go  further  down 
unless  we  adopt  manhood  or  rather  adult  suffrage ; 
and  when  that  comes  it  might  fairly  enough  be 
accompanied  by  an  educational  test.  Now  that 
education  is  free  as  well  as  compulsory,  there 
could  be  no  hardship  in  such  a  test;  and  the 
ignorant  are  always  the  prey  of  the  agitator 
and  a  menace  to  the  nation.  When  organised 
and  united,  the  workmen  of  the  nation  now  hold 
the  fate  of  Governments  and  the  destinies  of  rival 
policies  in  their  hands ;  and  if  they  were  to  use 
their  newly  found  giant's  power  for  their  own 
ends,  even  for  their  own  selfish  ends,  they  would 
only  be  doing  what  the  privileged  classes  who  have 
preceded  them  did  when  they  were  supreme. 

When  household  suffrage  came  to  the  labourer 
a  well-known  statesman  remarked  that  we  must 
educate  our  masters,  and  the  need  is  great  that 
when  our  new  masters  enter  on  their  inheritance 
and  unite  to  use  their  power  in  the  State  they  be 
guided  by  Christian  principles  and  be  as  eager  in 
their  loyalty  to  duty  as  in  their  assertion  of  their 
undoubted  rights.  Corruption  and  bribery  are 
not  less  immoral  or  deadly,  but  more  so,  when 
they  are  on  a  colossal  scale,  and  class  legislation  is 
an  evil  thing  for  the  State,  whatever  the  class 
may  be.  If  those  who  benefit  do  so,  not  as 
an  integral  part  of  the  nation,  but  simply  as  a 
class,  it  does  not  matter  whether  that  class  be 
poor  wage-earners,  great  landowners,  debenture 
holders  or  bloated  capitalists.     But  it  must  not 


THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE  189 

be  forgotten  that  those  who  express  most 
alarm  that  the  reign  of  the  workmen  may  be 
one-sided  are  just  those  who  in  the  days  gone 
by  have  shown  that  they  object  to  class  legis- 
lation only  when  they  are  not  the  class  who  are 
to  benefit,  and  whose  selfish  interests  are  to  be 
secured.  It  comes  with  peculiarly  bad  grace 
from  those  who  have  legislated  for  their  own 
class  since  ever  there  was  legislation,  either  as  land- 
owners or  as  those  who  have  reaped  persistently 
where  they  never  sowed,  to  protest  that  it  is  tyran- 
nical and  unpatriotic  for  the  labourer,  now  that 
he  is  a  citizen  and  a  voter,  to  use  his  opportunity 
to  right  his  wrongs  and  redress  his  grievances. 

The  same  criticism  applies  to  those  who  only 
fear  the  corrupting  and  demoralising  influence 
of  old-age  pensions  when  they  are  proposed 
for  working  men  and  women  who  are  no  longer 
able  to  work  and  had  seldom  more  than  a  pittance 
when  they  were  able.  It  is  more  than  strange 
that  no  such  fears  oppressed  them  when  similar 
provision,  but  on  a  vastly  larger  scale,  was  made 
for  retired  army  officials,  Government  servants, 
or  aged  and  infirm  Christian  ministers.  No  pen- 
sions are  more  in  demand,  or  more  unwarrantably 
obtained,  than  those  for  Cabinet  ministers  ;  and 
yet  some  who  enjoy  such  pensions,  or  hope  to  do 
so,  speak  as  if  five  shillings  a  week  for  the  aged 
poor  means  an  absolute  premium  on  vice  and 
waste  among  the  working  classes.  The  truth  is 
that  the  new  predominant  partner  has  as  yet 
shown  conspicuous  moderation  and  wisdom  in 
the  giddy  heights  to  which  he  has  so  recently 
been  called.  It  cannot  fairly  be  said  that  as  yet 
the  working  population  have  made  any  unfair  or 


190  THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 

even  unreasonable  use  of  their  growing  strength. 
As  yet  they  have  not  used  their  giant's  strength 
in  any  tyrannous  fashion.* 

The  truth  is  that  there  are  still  only  too  many 
most  effective  social  and  other  checks  to  chasten 
their  pride  and  hold  their  hands.  The  influence 
of  religion  in  making  for  moderation  and  fairness 
cannot  be  exaggerated,  as  those  know  best  who 
come  most  into  contact  with  w^orking  men.  And 
if  ever  a  time  of  reckoning  comes  between  the 
dominant  labourer — dominant,  that  is,  politically, 
but  not  industrially  as  yet — and  the  capitalist  and 
employer,  it  ought  to  be  clearly  recognised  that 
the  great  modern  movement  for  labour  reform 
began  long  before  the  labourer  had  the  franchise, 
and  was  therefore  not  inspired  by  fear  or  due 
to  force.  Anything  that  has  been  accomplished 
since  the  labourer  became  so  important  in  politics 
is  no  more  than  the  logical  outcome,  the  necessary 
sequence  of  what  had  been  begun  by  the  religious 
influences  already  at  work.  The  same  new  spirit 
which  ended  in  securing  the  vote  for  the  worker 

*  Even  the  demands  of  those  workmen  who  are  sup- 
posed to  represent  the  extremists  can  hardly  be  described 
as  exorbitant.  The  Social  Democratic  Federation  ask 
for  a  forty-eight  hours  week ;  for  thirty  shillings  as  the 
minimum  weekly  wage  for  all  workers  ;  for  equal  pay  for 
both  sexes  when  they  do  equal  work  ;  for  work  for  the 
unemployed  at  not  less  than  Trade  Union  wages ;  for 
old-age  pensions  and  the  abolition  of  child  labom*.  The 
Independent  Labovir  Party's  variations  on  this  are  that 
they  demand  a  week  of  forty-eight  hours,  with  work  for 
all  at  a  statutory  minimum  wage  of  sixpence  an  hour ;  old- 
age  pensions  at  fifty  ;  and  pensions  for  the  sick  and  the 
disabled.  They  might  well  be  astonished  at  the  moderation 
of  their  requests,  all  things  considered. 


THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE  191 

was  already  making  for  equality  and  justice  in 
politics.  It  would  be  easier  to  trace  back  the  new 
tenderness  and  sensitiveness  in  connection  with 
the  rights  of  the  labourer  to  the  evangelical 
revival  than  to  the  predominance  of  the  labourer 
in  politics.  The  effect  may  be  mistaken  for  the 
cause,  in  this  as  in  so  much  else. 

In  order  to  see  how  thoroughly  the  whole  trend 
of  recent  legislation  has  been  in  favour  of  the 
workmen,  and  how  true  it  is  that  it  has  grown 
out  of  this  new  and  more  gracious  spirit  of  which 
the  gospel  is  the  only  adequate  explanation,  we 
need  only  to  turn  to  the  laws  dealing  with 
the  liability  of  employers  for  injuries  due  to 
accident  or  hurt  received  in  the  course  of  employ- 
ment. Each  new  step  which  has  been  taken  in 
the  splendid  succession  has  been  more  in  the 
workman's  favour  than  its  predecessor,  and  still 
wider  in  its  sweep.  Even  after  the  liability  of 
the  employer  had  been  recognised  in  theory 
and  principle,  it  was  still  greatly  limited  in 
practice,  and  indeed  rendered  of  little  worth,  by 
the  doctrine  of  common  employment,  for  which, 
in  truth,  there  was  not  a  little  to  be  said.  That 
doctrine  was  that  there  could  be  no  liability  on 
the  part  of  the  employer  where  the  person  injured 
was  himself  a  servant  of  the  master  involved,  and 
was  engaged  in  his  service  in  a  common  employ- 
ment with  another  servant  whose  negligence 
caused  the  accident  or  damage.  The  first  inroad 
on  this  doctrine  was  made  as  recently  as  1880, 
while  in  1897  a  new  principle  altogether  was 
introduced.  Certain  employees  in  certain  em- 
ployments were  given  a  right  of  compensation 
for  injuries  wholly  irrespective  of  any  considera- 


192  THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 

tion  of  negligence  or  contributory  negligence.  This 
Act,  which  was  still  further  extended  in  the  year 
1900,  was  confessedly  tentative  and  partial,  and 
many  defects  and  ambiguities  were  soon  revealed 
in  it  in  practice  and  by  the  decision  of  the  law 
courts;  but  some  of  these  were  dealt  with  and 
removed  by  the  Act  of  1907,  which  went  so  far 
as  to  bring  seamen  and  domestic  servants  within 
the  scope  of  the  compensation  principle. 

Side  by  side  with  this,  however,  a  system 
of  insurance  has  grown  up  by  means  of  which 
employers  can  know  exactly  what  their  liability 
will  cost  them,  and  thus  any  serious  economic 
disturbance  has  been  averted.  Such  legislation, 
indeed,  is  still  admittedly  on  trial,  and  grave  defects 
and  drawbacks  may  be  laid  bare  in  it  which  may 
neutralise  in  part  its  manifest  advantages ;  but 
its  very  existence  is  a  convincing  proof  that  a 
new  force  is  at  work  in  the  settlement  of  such 
questions,  and  that  a  new  spirit  now  possesses 
the  nation  in  its  attitude  to  them.  The  older 
doctrine  no  longer  obtains  that  every  individual 
must  make  his  own  bargain  and  must  stand  by 
himself,  and  take  his  risks  along  with  his  oppor- 
tunities. The  many  identify  themselves  with  the 
few,  or  even  the  one,  and  share  responsibility 
with  them ;  and  the  legislature  in  the  name  of 
society  interferes  even  with  adult  labourers 
when  they  are  not  able  to  make  a  fair  bargain 
with  their  employers  on  account  of  poverty  or 
sex  disabilities,  and  no  longer  on  the  score  of  age 
alone.  It  has  been  realised  as  never  before  that 
no  man  liveth  to  himself,  and  that  no  man  dieth 
to  himself.  Nor  has  this  new  spirit  and  its  fruits 
led  as  yet  to  that  destruction   of   our   trade  and 


THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE  193 

commerce  which  the  prophets  of  evil  have  so  often 
predicted  it  would  accomplish. 

Indeed,  that  bogey  about  impending  ruin  if 
abuses  were  assailed,  has  been  so  often  brought 
out,  only  to  be  discredited  anew,  that  it  ought 
to  be  kept  in  close  confinement  now.  When  the 
Factory  Act  of  1847  was  passed  under  the  inspira- 
tion of  Lord  Shaftesbury,  or  rather  we  should  say 
under  the  inspiration  of  the  Saviour  whom  he 
loved  and  served,  limiting  the  hours  of  labour 
for  women  and  children  in  factories  to  ten  hours 
a  day,  even  Sir  Robert  Peel  was  of  opinion  that 
the  change  would  lead  to  less  production,  and 
by  and  by,  to  reduced  wages.  But  the  contrary 
soon  proved  to  be  the  case.  All  work  and  no 
play  make  the  labourer  unproductive.  The  health 
of  the  workers  improved  under  the  better  con- 
ditions, and  with  improved  health  there  were  also 
improved  morals  ;  the  result  being  that  the  pro- 
duction of  the  ten-hours'  day  was  as  great  as  that 
of  the  twelve-hours'  day.  If  only  the  nation  does 
justly  and  loves  mercy  and  is  the  true  and  boun- 
teous mother  of  all  her  sons  and  daughters,  in 
loyalty  to  the  Divine  law,  she  may  safely  leave  her 
trade  to  take  care  of  itself;  while  trade  which 
flourishes  through  injustice  and  oppression  is 
better  to  disappear.  It  has  been  found  that  the 
output  per  worker  in  cotton  mills  is  greatest 
where  the  hours  of  labour  are  least;  that  is  to 
say,  it  is  greater  in  Lancashire,  where  there  is  a 
week  of  fifty-four  hours,  than  in  France  with  a 
week  of  sixty  hours,  in  Germany  with  a  week  of 
sixty-six  hours,  or  in  the  East,  where  the  week  is 
as  much  as  from  seventy  to  eighty  hours.  More 
significant     still    in     this     connection    are    some 

Chriatianity  and  Labour.  14 


194    THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 

statistics  prepared  by  French  sociologists  in  an 
argument  for  an  eight- hours  day.  They  say  that 
the  results  prove  that  accidents  in  public  works  are 
reduced  by  more  than  one-third  where  the  work- 
ing day  is  only  eight  hours  long.  Their  scientific 
diagrams  show  that  from  six  till  seven  o'clock  in 
the  morning,  when  the  workers  are  fresh,  no 
accidents  fall  to  be  recorded  ;  that  from  seven  till 
eight  o'clock  5  per  cent,  of  the  accidents  occur ; 
while  in  the  hour  before  noon  as  many  as  21  per 
cent,  take  place.  Then  in  the  afternoon  the  same 
phenomena  are  to  be  seen.  Immediately  after 
the  dinner-hour  there  are  very  few  accidents  for 
a  time,  whereas  26  per  cent,  of  the  entire  total 
fall  to  be  recorded  between  five  and  six  o'clock 
in  the  evening,  in  the  last  hour  of  the  day  that 
is,  when  the  workers  are  tired  and  are  lacking  in 
interest  and  freshness. 

The  coming  of  the  labourer  to  his  own  as  citizen 
and  employee  has  also  been  signalised  by  many 
other  changes  which  have  made  for  the  benefit 
of  the  worker,  and  for  the  improvement  of  his 
lot,  which  is,  however,  capable  of  much  improve- 
ment yet.  In  one  Act  after  another  Parliament 
has  endeavoured  to  secure  that  workshops  and  fac- 
tories should  be  made  clean  and  healthy  ;  that  work 
should  be  done  under  safe  and  hygienic  conditions ; 
and  that  by  the  provision  of  fire-escapes  and  by 
the  proper  fencing  of  dangerous  machinery  every 
preventable  risk  should  be  removed.  It  is  only 
fair  to  add  that  in  many  cases  the  legislature  has 
had  to  protect  the  worker  from  his  own  rashness 
and  folly,  as  well  as  from  the  selfishness  and  care- 
lessness of  his  employer.  Over  against  unpro- 
tected machinery  has  to  be  set  the  criminal  use 


THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE  195 

of  uncovered  lights  in  fiery  mines.  For  the  pre- 
vention of  such  dangerous  practices  an  army  of 
inspectors  of  all  sorts  has  been  called  into  being 
and  has  been  armed  with  all  the  powers  necessary 
to  secure  safety  and  comfort,  and  to  deal  with 
such  things  as  drainage,  ventilation,  painting,  and 
much  else  in  workshops  and  factories.  In  recent 
years  special  progress  has  been  made  in  the 
appointment  of  women  inspectors  in  the  interests 
of  women  workers.  Particular  trades  and  indus- 
tries in  connection  with  which  there  are  special 
risks  have  also  been  specially  dealt  with.  In  1883, 
for  instance,  there  was  legislation  regarding  the 
peculiar  position  and  dangers  of  those  who  work 
among  white  lead  and  in  bakehouses.  In  1895 
laundries  were  specially  dealt  with,  and  in  1901 
special  provisions  were  enacted  in  connection  with 
creameries.  Laws  have  also  been  enacted  which 
seek  to  prevent  workers  being  defrauded  through 
their  wages  being  paid  in  kind  and  not  in  money, 
or  being  led  into  temptation  through  their  wages 
being  paid  in  public-houses.  In  this  movement  of 
amelioration  many  of  the  colonies  have  outstripped 
the  Mother  Country  in  the  race ;  as  was  only 
natural,  since  they  had  no  evil  precedents  or  pre- 
judices to  handicap  them.  Our  first  attempt  to 
prevent  sweating  has  just  been  begun — January, 
1910 — whereas  that  undoubted  evil  has  already 
been  dealt  with  by  law  both  in  New  Zealand 
and  Western  Australia.  The  age  below  which  no 
young  person  can  be  employed  in  factories  is  also 
higher  in  some  of  the  colonies  than  it  is  at  home. 
Here  the  age  is  still  as  low  as  twelve  for  half- 
timers,  whereas  in  New  Zealand  it  is  fourteen,  and 
in   other  colonies  is  thirteen  or  fourteen.    Natal 


196  THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 

and  Newfoundland,  among  our  colonies,  have 
neither  factory  nor  workshop  legislation,  probably 
because  they  have  not  yet  been  faced  with  any 
urgent  necessity  for  it.* 

The  fact  that  the  labourer  has  sometimes  to  be 
protected  against  himself  as  well  as  from  the 
capitalist  opens  up  very  difficult  questions  as  to 
how  far  the  State  can  go  in  interfering  with  the 
adult  labourer  and  his  work.  His  citizenship 
invests  him  with  certain  rights,  and  among  these 
rights  the  foremost  is  that  he  should  be  free. 
But  how^  far  is  he  to  be  left  free  to  injure  him- 
self, which  ultimately  means,  in  the  social 
organism,  to  injure  the  community  ?  It  has  been 
said  that  the  most  striking  fact  in  the  social 
history  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  the  emergence 
of  the  individual.  But  long  before  that  fateful 
century  had  come  to  an  end  the  new  submergence 
of  the  individual  in  the  State  had  begun,  and  the 
movement  which  had  brought  the  labourer  all 
the  way  from  status  to  contract  and  had  taken 
many  centuries  to  do  so,  had  begun  to  lead  him 

*  Nothing  in  modern  labour  legislation  is  more  significant 
of  the  advent  of  a  new  spirit  than  the  Trade  Boards  Act 
which  received  the  Royal  assent  on  October  20,  1909.  It 
secured  the  official  acknowledgment  of  both  sides  of  the 
House  of  the  principle  that  it  is  better  even  that  a  trade 
should  cease  to  exist  than  that  it  should  be  carried  on  at  the 
cost  of  the  home  life,  the  health,  and  the  very  existence  of 
the  worker.  Put  in  the  simplest  terms,  this  Act  secures  for 
women  workers  the  protection  by  law  which  men  have  been 
able  to  secure  for  themselves  through  their  Trade  Unions,  and 
substitutes  for  strikes  and  lockouts  the  more  reasonable  and 
civilised  methods  of  a  Conciliation  and  Arbitration  Board. 
It  not  only  protects  the  workers,  it  protects  the  honourable 
and  humane  employer  against  his  less  scrupulous  rival. 


THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE  197 

back  to  status  once  more.  Indeed,  it  seems  certain 
that  one  of  the  great  labour  problems  which  the 
twentieth  century  must  face,  and  face  soon,  is  how 
far  the  State,  acting  in  the  interests  of  the  whole 
organism,  may  go  in  the  direction  of  limiting  the 
freedom  of  those  who  compose  it.  Man  shall  not 
live  by  bread  alone,  and  it  would  be  a  big  price  to 
pay  for  better  wages  and  shorter  hours,  for  the 
right  to  combine  and  the  right  to  rule,  and  all 
the  other  advantages  which  the  new  era  has 
brought,  and  is  yet  to  bring,  if  the  labourer  ceased 
to  be  really  free.  It  is  all  very  well  to  say,  with 
Huxley,  "  the  only  freedom  I  care  for  is  the 
freedom  to  do  right,"  but  what  sort  of  right  can 
be  done  if  true  freedom  goes?  It  is  not  enough 
to  be  fed  and  clothed  and  amused.  Even  a  bene- 
volent despotism,  with  a  circus  attached,  is  still  a 
despotism,  and  a  man  cannot  realise  his  true 
being  as  spiritual  and  made  for  God  under  any 
despot,  no  matter  how  altruistic  and  kindly  he 
may  be.  The  whole  truth  is  no  more  to  be  found 
in  the  new  Socialism  than  in  the  old  individualism. 
It  can  only  be  found  in  the  gospel,  applied  all 
round  in  the  spirit  of  Christ  and  in  loyalty  alike 
to  the  organism  and  the  individual.* 

When  the  modem  interference  with  labour 
began,    after    it    had    been    made    fearfully  and 

*  As  the  late  Professor  Caird  has  so  well  put  it,  "  Society- 
is  not  an  aggregate  of  independent  units,  not  a  mere 
mechanical  whole  in  which  difference  is  suppressed,  but,  in 
the  true  sense  of  the  word,  an  organism  in  which  the  unity 
of  the  whole  is  buUt  on  the  relatively  independent  life  of 
every  part ;  and  the  independent  life  of  every  part  nom-ishes 
and  maintains  itself  through  its  connection  with  the  unity 
of  the  whole  body." 


198  THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 

pathetically  apparent  that  civil  war  can  never 
be  the  avenue  to  national  well-being  and  indus- 
trial peace,  the  theory  was  that  there  must 
be  no  interference  with  adult  men,  but  only  with 
children,  and,  in  some  instances,  with  women 
workers.  Even  those  who  were  in  sympathy  with 
the  new  tendencies  eagerly  protested  that  grown 
men  must  be  left  to  work  out  their  own  social 
salvation  in  blood  and  tears  if  need  be ;  left  to 
sink  or  swim,  even  if  that  meant  sinking  for 
very  many.  It  was  held  that  adult  men  are 
abundantly  able  to  fight  their  own  battle  and  to 
obtain  full  recognition  of  all  their  rights  with- 
out any  special  help  from  the  legislature.  The 
truth  is  that  at  the  time  it  was  a  great  achieve- 
ment to  secure  any  interference  even  on  behalf  of 
children  and  women.  "  Freedom  of  contract " 
had  become  a  sort  of  fetish,  even  with  many  who 
were  both  wise  and  good ;  and  much  indignation 
was  expressed  when  Parliament  proposed  to 
interfere  with  a  principle  so  sacrosanct.  It  was 
believed  by  many  that  such  interference  would 
reduce  the  whole  social  machinery  to  chaos.  If 
a  grown  woman  chose  to  enter  into  an  agree- 
ment to  work  for  so  many  hours  a  day  for  a 
certain  wage,  what  right  had  the  legislature  to 
say  that  she  was  not  free  to  work  as  long  as 
she  pleased?  Or  if  a  man  was  willing  to  hire 
out  the  labour  of  his  children  for  so  many  hours 
a  day  for  a  certain  payment,  what  right  had  the 
legislature  to  say  that  he  could  not  do  what  he 
pleased  with  his  own?  To  say  that  a  man  was 
not  free  to  deal  with  his  children  as  he  thought 
best  for  his  own  interests  and  theirs,  seemed  to 
many  to  be  a  shocking  interference  with  freedom 


THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE  199 

and  economic  law,  even  although  the  man  were 
a  cruel,  drunken  brute  and  the  children  barba- 
rously ill-used.  And  the  parents  themselves 
protested  as  well  as  the  doctrinaires. 

In  the  Factory  Commission  Report  of  1833  a 
woman  is  quoted  as  saying :  "  I  hope  the  hours 
won't  be  reduced,  because  we  have  hard  work  to 
live  as  it  is.  I  never  beg  the  children  off  work; 
our  earnings  won't  allow  it."  Under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  evangelical  revival,  however,  the 
heart  of  the  nation  began  to  revolt  against 
such  a  state  of  affairs,  and  its  intellect  came  to 
see  how  absurd  such  heroics  of  pedantic  theorists, 
as  well  as  such  pleadings  from  down-trodden 
parents,  alike  were,  although  even  with  the 
revival  things  moved  slowly  for  long.  And  it 
may  be  that  some  were  prevented  from  support- 
ing the  movement  on  behalf  of  the  women  and 
the  children  by  a  just  perception  that  such  a 
movement  could  not  cease  with  them,  and  that  it 
would  not  long  be  possible  to  stop  short  of  inter- 
ference with  the  adult  man  worker ;  at  any  rate, 
where  he  had  to  do  his  work  in  circumstances  of 
special  disadvantage.  And  if  so,  their  hesitation 
was  grounded  on  a  true  insight  into  what  must 
come  in  the  end,  if  once  the  State  began  to 
interfere  with  the  laissez  faire  principle  at  all. 

For,  to  begin  with,  any  interference  with  the 
labour  of  women  and  children  of  necessity  inter- 
fered with  the  labour  of  the  men  who  worked 
with  them  in  the  same  factories  and  workshops. 
Not  only  so,  but  it  could  not  long  be  concealed 
that  the  same  principle  which  led  to  special 
dealing  with  women  and  children  led  also  to 
special    dealing  with   such    workmen    as  miners 


200  THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 

and  seamen.  For  the  principle  really  was  that 
the  State  interfered  not  merely  in  the  intereic 
of  the  workers,  but  in  its  own  interest,  and 
when  once  a  beginning  was  made  in  that  direc- 
tion rapid  progress  was  inevitable.  In  four  years 
recently  no  fewer  than  sixteen  trades  were 
scheduled  by  the  Secretary  for  State  as  dangerous 
to  health,  and  the  workmen  engaged  in  them  are 
only  allowed  now  to  carry  on  their  operations 
under  very  definite  restrictions.  The  State  goes 
even  further  than  that  now.  It  follows  out- 
workers to  their  homes  and  inquires  whether  the 
work  which  is  done  there  is  done  under  condi- 
tions which  might  prove  hurtful  either  to  the 
workers  themselves,  to  those  among  whom  they 
pursue  their  calling,  or  to  those  for  whom  the 
work  is  done.  Whenever  the  Secretary  for 
State  began  to  exercise  the  powers  entrusted 
to  him  by  the  Act  of  1891,  to  limit  the  period 
of  employment  of  any  class  of  persons  in  any 
process  scheduled  by  his  order,  there  passed 
away  without  any  appearance  of  disaster,  and 
indeed  without  any  overt  opposition,  the  freedom 
of  the  adult  male  labourer  to  carry  on  his  manu- 
factures without  legislative  limitation  of  his 
hours  of  labour. 

The  stern  facts  of  the  case,  along  with  a  fuller 
perception  of  the  rights  of  the  community,  sufficed 
to  sweep  away  the  mere  doctrinaire  theories  ;  and 
once  again  the  predictions  of  disaster  have 
gone  to  the  limbo  of  forgotten  and  unfulfilled 
lore.  Fortunately  there  are  some  prophecies 
which  do  not  fulfil  themselves. 

It  is  generally  recognised  now  that  in  any 
interference  with  labour  the  guiding  principle  is 


THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE  201 

not  to  be  found  in  any  consideration  of  the  age 
or  sex  of  the  worker,  or  even  of  his  helplessness  or 
need,  but  in  the  wider  claims  and  rights  of  the 
State.  Even  where  only  women  and  children 
are  concerned  the  State  has  no  right  to  interfere 
except  in  the  interests  of  the  entire  community ; 
and  where  these  interests  are  at  stake  the  State 
has  exactly  the  same  right  to  interfere,  and  the 
same  duty  to  interfere,  with  the  labour  of  grown 
men.  No  one,  whether  man  or  woman,  whether 
old  or  young,  has  any  absolute  rights  as  against 
the  State.  Salus  populi  suprema  lex.  The  well- 
being  of  the  community  is  the  highest  law;  and 
this  is  admitted  now  by  all  who  are  not  either 
given  over  w^hoUy  to  selfishness  or  held  fast  by 
idolatry  to  the  fading  deity  of  laissez  faire. 

Extreme  individualism  has  died  a  natural  death, 
and  absolute  freedom  of  contract  has  perished  with 
it.*  Nor  is  there  any  sphere  now  in  which  there  is 
the  old  rigid  submission  to  the  formulae  which  were 
often  so  glibly  quoted  as  if  they  were  altogether 
above  criticism.  It  was  that  submission  which 
made  political  economy  the  dismal  science,  and 
whatever  it  has  become,  it  is  no  longer  dismal.  All 
thinking  men  would  now  agree  with  Carlyle  that 
whatever  liberty  should  mean  it  ought  never  to 
mean  merely  liberty  to  starve,  and  that  whenever 

*  ' '  The  old  regime  of  pure  laissez  faire  has  been  proved 
impracticable.  Its  intellectual  basis  has  been  undennined, 
and  many  of  its  inevitable  consequences  have  outraged  the 
conscience  of  all  civilised  and  Christian  States,  which  have 
all,  to  a  greater  or  less  degree,  set  about  the  task  of  pro- 
ducing a  better  order  by  means  inconsistent  with  its 
principle"  (Cairns,  "Christianity  in  the  Modern  World," 
p.  269). 


202    THE   LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 

it  means  anything  like  that  it  is  no  longer  Divine. 
Not  only  so,  but  nearly  everybody  now  admits 
that  on  the  whole  laissez  faire  has  been  a  miser- 
able failure  for  great  masses  of  our  fellow-men, 
and  nowhere  more  so  than  in  our  own  compara- 
tively free  and  prosperous  land. 

No  one  now  pleads  that  any  person  or  class  or 
institution  can  have  any  abstract  rights  as  against 
the  well-being  of  the  nation  as  a  whole.  To  set 
the  solidarity  of  labour  in  one  camp  and  the 
solidarity  of  capital  in  another  is  to  deal  a 
deadly  blow  at  the  solidarity  of  the  State ;  and 
such  a  fact  as  that  out  of  34,000  men  who  offered 
themselves  for  military  service  during  the  Boer 
War  16,000  were  rejected  for  physical  reasons, 
reveals  how  closely  some  of  the  results  of  an 
unholy  competition  may  bear  on  the  very  exist- 
ence of  the  State  as  independent  and  free. 

Freedom  of  contract  is  not  only  an  empty 
phrase  in  many  cases ;  it  is  often  an  insult  and  a 
mockery  to  speak  of  it  in  connection  with  some 
contracts  which  the  State  is  in  no  way  called  on 
to  vindicate.  And  all  that  can  be  claimed  in  any 
case  is  that  there  should  be  fair  play,  that  every 
one  should  be  equal  before  the  law ;  and  that  in 
so  far  as  the  State  allows  freedom  of  contract 
for  any,  it  should  secure  it  for  all,  and  must  not 
permit  any  class  to  be  specially  favoured  or 
hampered  in  their  exercise  of  this  right  and 
power.  The  guiding  principle  must  be  expediency 
in  its  highest  form,  a  noble  opportunism  which, 
however,  is  guided  by  principles  and  not  by  mere 
rules,  and  which  seeks  the  highest  good  of  all 
the  people,  with  the  conviction  that  whatever 
secures  that  is  best. 


THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE  203 

And  it  is  here  that  the  gospel  must  come  in, 
if  it  is  to  come  in  at  all,  and  if  the  nations  are  not 
to  exchange  the  evils  and  tyrannies  of  individual- 
ism for  those  of  a  materialistic  Socialism.  Nothing 
but  love  is  sufficient  for  the  infinite  needs  of  human 
life,  and  nothing  but  a  spirit  renewed  by  the 
Divine  love  is  sufficient  for  the  stress  and  strain  of 
the  labour  problem  as  we  know  it.  The  good  in 
both  systems  is  due  to  Christianity,  and  it  alone 
can  guide  the  open  mind  which  is  so  characteristic 
of  the  present  age,  and  apply  the  Divine  law  in 
a  situation  unparalleled  in  the  history  of  the 
race,  at  once  in  its  complexity  and  in  its  wondrous 
possibilities. 

Whenever  we  seek  to  describe  the  principle 
on  which  alone  the  State  has  any  right  to 
restrict  the  freedom  of  any  citizen,  spiritual 
and  responsible  as  every  citizen  is,  we  at  once 
show  the  need  for  such  guidance  in  applying 
it  as  Christianity  alone  can  give.  For  that 
principle  undoubtedly  is  that  since  society  is  an 
organic  unity,  it  can  and  should  interfere  when- 
ever the  rights  and  interests  of  the  whole  are 
suffering  at  the  hands  of  any  of  its  component 
parts.  Its  business  is  to  secure  that  no  one  is 
made  an  end  without  also  being  a  means,  nor  any 
one  a  means  without  also  being  an  end. 

Nor  does  any  true  freedom  suffer  through  such 
intervention.  "The  only  freedom  which  deserves 
the  name,"  as  Mr.  Mill  truly  puts  it,  "  is  that  of  pur- 
suing our  own  good  in  our  own  way  so  long  as  we 
do  not  attempt  to  deprive  others  of  theirs  or 
impede  their  efforts  to  attain  it."  We  are  only 
free  when  we  are  acting  in  harmony  with  our  true 
nature  as  made  in  the  image  of  God ;  and  from 


204  THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 

that  standpoint  we  may  agree  with  Huxley  when 
he  declared  himself  ready  to  part  with  the  freedom 
to  do  wrong  on  the  cheapest  terms  to  any  one  who 
would  take  it  from  him. 

But  it  is  obvious  that  the  community  which 
would  interfere  with  any  of  its  members  along 
these  lines,  so  as  to  do  good  and  not  evil,  must  be 
in  possession  of  the  Divine  light,  and  must  walk 
according  to  principles  which  can  be  universalised. 
It  cannot  act  by  mere  rule  of  thumb.  Mere  casual 
insight  and  help  will  not  long  avail.  Mere  by- 
laws and  regulations  will  soon  be  exhausted. 
Christianity  alone  can  provide  the  light  and  power 
which  the  modern  State  with  its  magnificent  ideals 
and  yearnings  requires  continually.  It  alone  can 
leaven  the  whole  lump.  It  alone  can  raise  the 
temperature  and  create  a  new  spirit.  It  alone 
can  replace  selfishness  with  altruism,  and  lead 
men  to  look  not  only  on  their  own  things  but 
also  on  the  things  of  others.  It  alone  can  touch 
men  alike  as  a  body  and  as  individuals,  and  so  as 
to  give  both  inspiration  and  power.* 

It  is  easy  enough  to  speak  vaguely  about  seek- 
ing the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number,  and 
such-like  aspirations  ;  but  that  kind  of  copy-book 
head-line  wisdom  does  not  carry  us  very  far.  As 
George  Eliot  has  it,  emotion  is  obstinately 
irrational  and  absolutely  refuses  to  adopt  the 
quantitative  view  of  human  anguish,  or  to  admit 
that  thirteen  happy  lives  are  a  set-off  against 
twelve  miserable  lives,  which  leaves  a  clear  balance 

*  "If  co-operation  is  to  succeed  as  a  practical  application 
of  Christianity  to  business,  there  must  be  breathed  into  it 
a  spirit  of  Christian  consecration"  (Professor  Eli,  "The 
Labour  Movement  in  America,"  p.  201). 


THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE  205 

on  the  side  of  satisfaction.  Arithmetical  solutions 
are  of  no  avail,  and  there  never  was  such  need  for 
the  light  of  the  gospel  in  legislation  and  adminis- 
tration as  there  is  now,  when  political  economy  is 
at  a  discount,  and  we  have  embarked  on  the 
troubled  and  unknown  waters  of  expediency. 

There  may  be  nothing  nobler  than  a  true 
expediency,  a  Christian  opportunism ;  but  there 
may  be  nothing  meaner  or  pettier  than  an 
expediency  or  opportunism  without  the  Divine 
light.  Nor,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  has  Christianity 
been  idle  or  inoperative  during  these  years  in 
which  the  labourer  has  been  coming  to  his  own  as 
employee  and  citizen.  Amid  much  weakness  and 
inconsistency,  for  which  generous  hearts  always 
make  allowance,  as  for  the  personal  equation  in 
astronomy,  it  has  been  proclaiming  its  Divine 
message  more  clearly  and  fully  than  ever  before, 
and  its  message  has  been  applied  with  unwonted 
resolution  to  the  new  problems  which  have  to  be 
faced. 

And  it  is  no  wonder  if  those  who  have  the  spirit 
of  Christ  have  felt  the  lure  of  the  new  era,  since  it 
is  to  Him  we  owe  everything  which  makes  the  era 
new  and  hopeful.  It  is  not  enough  to  say  that 
true  Christianity  is  never  critical  merely  to  any 
movement  for  amelioration,  but  always  sympa- 
thetic. It  is  the  direct  or  indirect  source  and 
inspirer  of  every  such  movement,  and  its 
principles  are  applied  and  its  laws  enunciated 
even  by  those  who  are  not  themselves  believers  in 
Christ. 

They  have  sometimes  done  this  in  unworthy 
ways,  as  when  they  have  set  up  other  systems  as 
rivals  to  the  gospel  on  the  strength  of  principles 


206  THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 

which  were  wholly  due  to  the  teaching  and  spirit 
of  Christ.  But  even  when  the  gospel  is  attacked 
by  those  who  wear  the  borrowed  robes  of  Christian 
truth,  believers  can  rejoice  that  even  so  the  gospel 
is  preached.  Even  when  Christ  is  preached  in 
envy  we  rejoice  that  He  is  being  made  known  to 
men.  For  it  is  under  the  influence  of  Christian 
truth  directly  and  indirectly  applied  that  the  old 
deplorable  caste  lines  and  the  former  limitations 
of  paganism  and  feudalism  have  so  largely  dis- 
appeared in  presence  of  a  new  recognition  of  what 
it  means  that  the  Lord  Jesus  was  and  is  a  man, 
and  that  He  invites  all  men  to  be  His  disciples. 

It  is  said  that  a  great  lady  once  demanded  of  a 
preacher  whether  he  actually  taught  that  she  must 
be  saved  in  the  same  way  as  her  footman  ;  and  it 
is  on  record  that  a  French  Marquise  of  the  ancien 
regime  remarked  of  some  one  in  the  circle  she 
honoured  with  her  presence,  that  God  would  think 
twice  before  He  condemned  a  man  of  his  rank. 
The  Duchess  of  Buckingham,  too,  in  Whitefield's 
time,  denounced  the  Countess  of  Huntingdon  for 
asking  her  to  go  to  hear  the  preacher.  His 
doctrine,  she  said,  was  most  repulsive,  as  tending 
to  level  all  ranks  and  do  away  with  all  distinc- 
tions. "  It  is  monstrous  to  be  told  that  you  have 
a  heart  as  sinful  as  the  common  wretches  that 
crawl  on  the  earth ;  and  I  cannot  but  wonder 
that  your  ladyship  should  relish  any  sentiments 
so  much  at  variance  with  high  rank  and  good 
breeding." 

This  spirit  was  begotten  of  the  days  when  the 
labourer  was  a  serf,  and  did  much  to  prolong  these 
days,  just  as  it  did  much  to  bring  about  the  French 
Revolution  ;  and  it  has  died  out  just  in  proportion 


THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE  207 

as  Christian  truth  has  been  understood  and  applied 
to  it.  No  matter  how  long  men  have  taken  to  see 
it,  the  brotherhood  of  men  is  the  necessary  result 
of  the  Fatherhood  of  God  as  revealed  in  the  gospel 
and  embodied  in  the  entire  Christian  Revelation. 
The  Incarnation  was  a  prophecy  of  what  man  may 
become  :  the  embodiment  of  the  Divine  conception 
of  man  ;  and  the  leaven  of  Christianity  takes  time 
to  work.  Even  yet  the  Church  and  the  world  are 
only  beginning  to  understand  what  the  Christian 
religion  really  is.* 

One  of  the  chief  forces  which  Christianity  has 
had  to  combat  in  bringing  in  this  better  day  has 
been  the  influence  of  the  ordinary  political  eco- 
nomy which  gathers  round  the  name  and  teaching 
of  Adam  Smith.  The  theory  of  trading  and  trade 
of  this  school,  with  all  its  conspicuous  merits,  has 
been  purely  individualistic ;  perhaps  necessarily 
so.  It  simply  ignored  moral  considerations,  as 
was  perhaps  inevitable,  although  trade,  like  all 
else  in  human  life,  rests  on  the  moral ;  f  but  it  is 
the  primary  business  of  the  gospel  to  invade  every 
department  and  to  see  that  moral  considerations 
are  everywhere  supreme,  even  in  commerce  and 
trade. 

Some  Socialists  who  resent  the  religious  question 

*  Yet  "the  trend  of  evolution  has  been  towards  what 
appears  to  us  as  good.  Unceasing  war  has  beaten  into 
actuality  relative  peace.  From  strife  to  conscious  strife, 
from  conscious  strife  to  comparative  tranquillity,  and  from 
comparative  tranquillity  to  ideals  of  human  brotherhood  and 
universal  love"  (J.  B.  Hunt,  "Existence  after  Death  Im- 
plied by  Science,"  p.  334). 

t  ' '  We  must  moralise  our  social  relations  as  they  stand  and 
every  other  reform  will  come  as  a  thing  of  course  "  (Professor 
Jones,  "The  Working  Faith  of  the  Social  Reformer,"  p.  114). 


208  THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 

being  raised  at  all  are  fond  of  saying  that  you  may 
as  well  try  to  speak  of  Christian  astronomy  as  of 
Christian  Socialism,  and  that  Socialism  is  a  political 
economy  and  not  a  religion.  But  men  are  not  so 
built  as  to  allow  of  such  lines  being  drawn.  A 
man,  whether  for  evil  or  good,  is  not  many,  but 
one.  The  political  economy  which  postures  as 
non-moral  or  non-religious  will  probably  end  in 
being  immoral  and  irreligious.  And  when 
Socialists  argue  that  Socialism  has  no  more  to  do 
with  religion  than  with  astronomy,  they  are  either 
playing  with  words  or  ignoring  the  biggest  facts  of 
history  and  life.*  And  in  many  instances  that  was 
the  fate  of  the  older  system  now  nearly  extinct. 

To  make  self-interest  the  ruling  principle,  and  to 
look  for  the  common  prosperity  to  come  through 
common  selfishness,  tended  to  reduce  the  social 
order  and  the  relations  of  employer  and  employed 
to  being  a  species  of  civil  war.  To  teach  that  the 
nexus  of  cash  payments  alone  can  bind  men  into 
a  fruitful  or  helpful  unity,  or  to  think  and  speak 
of  physical  labour  in  such  a  way  as  to  betray 
the  conception  that  the  labourer  can  hardly  be 
expected  to  find  pleasure  and  satisfaction  in  his 
work,  and  should  therefore  work  as  little  as  he  can, 
is  to  bring  back  the  old  paganism  under  the  thin 
veneer  of  a  new  philosophy.     To  rob  labour  of  its 

*  Cf.  Mr.  Ramsay  Macdonald,  "Socialism,"  p.  101: 
' '  Socialism  has  no  more  to  do  with  a  man's  religion  than  it 
has  to  do  with  the  colour  of  his  hair.  Socialism  deals  with 
secular  things,  not  with  ultimate  beliefs."  Or  Mr.  Keir 
Hardie,  "From  Serfdom  to  Socialism,"  p.  36  :  "It  cannot  be 
too  emphatically  stated  that  Socialism  takes  no  more  cog- 
nisance of  the  religious  opinions  of  its  adherents  than  does 
either  Liberalism  or  Conservatism." 


THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE  209 

essential  and  inherent  dignity,  or  to  view  the 
labourer  as  an  impersonal  labour-power  with  a 
number  and  not  a  name,  as  a  hand  and  not  a  soul, 
something  to  be  replaced  by  another  similar 
instrument  whenever  he  is  incapacitated  or  worn 
out,  is  to  remove  every  hope  of  genuine  improve- 
ment and  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  disintegration 
of  society  and  sheer  anarchy.  To  exalt  freedom 
of  contract  as  some  have  done  until  it  is  the 
supreme  principle,  the  quintessence  of  all  wisdom, 
is  not  merely  to  reduce  the  State  to  the  office  of 
a  night-watchman,  as  Lassalle  put  it,  it  is  to  go 
in  the  face  of  the  most  obvious  necessities  of  our 
daily  life  and  the  most  elementary  Christian 
principles. 

And  Christianity  has  not  only  taken  up  the 
challenge ;  we  may  fairly  claim,  the  economists 
themselves  being  witnesses,  that  she  has  won  in 
the  first  encounter  in  the  great  conflict.  Men  no 
longer  bow  as  they  once  did  before  the  orthodox 
Dagon ;  and  the  Pan- Anglican  Conference  had 
purified  public  opinion  behind  it  when  it  declared 
that  "property  is  not  so  much  a  possession  for 
an  individual  as  a  trust  for  a  community  " ;  "  that 
the  forces  of  competition  must  be  restrained  by 
the  forces  of  brotherhood." 

The  late  Professor  Green  of  Oxford  taught  that 
the  "  progress  of  mankind  is  a  progress  of  personal 
character  and  to  personal  character,"  and  from 
this  viewpoint  the  progress  which  the  labourer 
has  already  made  under  the  leadership  of  Christ 
is  very  marked.  All  through  the  era  when  he 
was  a  servant  he  was  steadily  becoming  a  stronger 
and  braver  man,  and  this  advance  has  been  still 
more    marked   since   that   era    was    left   behind. 

Christianity  and  Labour.  15 


210  THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 

New  responsibiKties  have  developed  the  new 
powers  necessary  to  meet  them.  "  The  real  smart 
is  the  soul's  pain  and  stigma,  the  hurt  inflicted 
on  the  moral  self,"  said  Carlyle,  and  the  converse 
of  that  proposition  is  also  true. 

The  only  progress  which  really  counts  is  that 
of  the  moral  self.  The  recognition  of  new  rights 
gives  birth  to  new  conceptions  of  duty,  for  there 
can  be  no  right  without  its  corresponding  duty ; 
and  personal  character  has  grown  as  new  depths 
were  fathomed  and  unwonted  summits  scaled. 
The  advancement  of  the  labourer  may  be  measured 
by  his  growth  in  the  sense  of  personal  responsi- 
bility to  God,  and  beyond  any  question  nothing 
has  done  so  much  to  deepen  that  great  sense  which 
ennobles  and  enlarges  as  Christianity  has  done. 

The  gospel  comes  to  men  with  its  summons  to 
personal  decision  and  personal  service,  and  with 
its  emphasis  on  the  infinite  issues  which  here  and 
now  gather  round  every  human  soul;  and  it  has 
been  the  salt  of  the  earth,  the  light  of  men.  That 
this  claim  is  in  no  way  the  outcome  of  mere 
prejudice  is  amply  borne  out  by  the  specific  charge 
already  alluded  to,  that  the  gospel  of  the  grace 
of  God  has  filled  the  down-trodden  workers  with 
such  hopes  for  the  life  to  come  that  it  has  made 
them  culpably  careless  about  the  wrongs  and 
injustices  of  the  life  which  now  is,  with  its  mani- 
fold duties  and  appeals. 

Unfortunately  that  charge  is  so  ridiculous  that 
the  friends  of  the  gospel  cannot  but  wish  there 
was  more  foundation  for  it ;  but  those  who  make 
it  can  hardly  allege  at  the  same  time  that  Chris- 
tianity has  not  been  influential  in  lifting  up  the 
labourer,  or  that  it  may  now  be  treated  as  effete. 


THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE  211 

As  it  is  we  can  only  rejoice  in  the  testimony, 
perverse  though  it  be,  that  God's  good  news  has 
brought  joy  into  sorrowful  and  stricken  lives ; 
that  it  has  made  heavy  burdens  light;  and  has 
inspired  the  weary  toilers  with  hopes  which  make 
all  things  new.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  and  on  no 
foundation  of  ill-informed  criticism,  it  has  not 
only  done  that ;  it  has  made  men  quick  to  discern 
their  rights  and  brave  to  defend  them. 

It  is  notorious,  for  example,  that  the  effect  of 
Christianity  alike  on  the  Puritans  of  England 
and  on  the  Covenanters  of  Scotland  was  the  very 
reverse  of  what  is  alleged  in  the  insinuation  just 
referred  to.  When  it  set  men  free  in  their  souls, 
it  made  them  eager  for  corresponding  freedom  in 
the  State.  It  was  not  seemly  that  those  whom 
God  had  redeemed  should  be  deprived  of  their 
civil  rights.  A  new  passion  for  justice  filled  the 
men  of  the  second  Reformation  as  it  filled  the 
hearts  of  the  awakening  peasants  in  the  first. 
Mr.  Green  says  that  "  the  whole  history  of  English 
progress  since  the  Restoration,  on  its  moral  and 
spiritual  side,  has  been  the  history  of  Puritanism,"  * 
and  no  one  can  say  that  the  Puritans  unduly 
acquiesced  in  wrongs  in  this  life  because  of  the 
hope  which  filled  them  for  the  life  to  come.  Not 
only  were  they  filled  with  the  yearning  to  be  free 
all  round,  they  were  made  fit  to  be  free ;  and 
obtained  the  new  power  which  made  them  strong 
to  follow  up  their  demands  by  brave  and  resolute 
deeds. 

It  is  the  glory  of  the  gospel  that  it  makes  men 
fit  for  self-government,  and  in  all  history  there 
is  no  instance  of  a  people  making  permanent 
*  "  Short  History  of  the  English  People,"  p.  586. 


212  THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 

progress  in  character  apart  from  its  teaching  and 
inspiration.  Christ  alone  can  ensure  the  growth 
of  personality  along  moral  and  spiritual  lines  in 
likeness  to  Himself.  "  I  am  among  you  as  one 
that  serves,"  is  His  message  to  the  labouring  man, 
and  in  that  message  there  lies  the  secret  of  the 
power  which  moralises  the  worker  and  his  work. 
But  just  because  it  is  spiritual,  Christianity  must 
have  time  to  exert  its  influence  and  do  its  work. 
Wondrous  as  its  fruits  have  been,  it  can  never 
work  by  magic,  but  only  through  the  renewed 
soul.  It  does  not  come,  therefore,  with  observa- 
tion of  men,  as  we  have  already  noted  in  every 
era  in  the  progress  already  made. 

The  history  of  labour  emphasises  the  need  for 
patience  on  the  part  of  those  who  are  yearning 
for  something  vastly  better  than  anything  which 
has  been  attained  as  yet ;  even  as  it  suggests  the 
infinite  patience  of  God  amid  all  the  stubbornness 
of  men  and  their  inhumanity  to  each  other. 
History  is  the  living  garment  of  God,  and  He  has 
been  making  the  meaning  of  the  gospel  more  and 
more  manifest  as  the  ages  have  rolled  past. 

The  anti-slavery  movement  with  which  the 
nineteenth  century  began  arose  out  of  a  truer 
appreciation  of  the  mind  of  Christ ;  and  John 
Stuart  Mill,  no  prejudiced  critic,  declared  that  the 
action  of  Great  Britain,  in  paying  twenty  million 
pounds  that  her  slaves  in  the  West  Indies  should 
be  free,  was  the  most  definitely  righteous  act  ever 
done  by  a  nation.  But  that  same  anti-slavery 
movement  is  an  object-lesson  in  the  slowness  with 
which  even  good  men  and  true  see  the  logical,  or 
better,  the  spiritual  issues  of  their  faith.  In  the 
light  of  the   evangelical  Revival  our  fathers  saw 


THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE  213 

clearly  enough  that  it  was  as  sinful  to  enslave 
black  men  as  to  enslave  white  men ;  but  obvious 
as  that  seems  to  us  now,  it  took  many  a  long 
while  to  see  it  even  in  the  fuller  light. 

In  his  autobiography,  published  in  1904,  the  late 
Mr.  Moncure  D.  Conway  tells  how  he  was  brought 
up  in  a  truly  godly  Methodist  home  in  Virginia, 
where  slaves  were  kept  as  a  matter  of  course. 
They  were  well  treated  and  the  word  "  slave  "  was 
not  used.  But  although  the  blacks  were  spoken 
of  as  servants,  or  simply  as  negroes,  they  were 
indubitably  slaves.  His  cousin,  who  was  the 
editor  and  owner  of  the  most  influential  paper 
in  the  South,  harmonised  slavery  with  the  most 
radical  democratic  equality  by  the  theory  that 
Africans  were  not  strictly  human  beings !  Mr. 
Conway's  mother  had  to  cease  giving  lessons 
in  the  Christian  faith  to  the  children  of  their 
slaves  along  with  her  own  children,  because  it 
was  rumoured  that  she  was  teaching  them  to  read, 
which  would  have  been  illegal.  Mr.  Conway  him- 
self at  one  stage  in  his  development  held  that  the 
negro  was  not  a  man  within  the  meaning  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence. 

So  slow,  if  also  so  sure,  is  the  progress  of  moral 
causes  and  spiritual  conceptions ;  but  whenever 
the  Christian  community  came  to  see  what  the 
gospel  meant  and  involved,  abolition  soon 
followed.  Obedience  is  the  pathway  to  revela- 
tion and  the  fruit  of  revelation,  and  abolition 
and  revival  went  hand  in  hand  in  the  days  of 
quickened  consciences  and  opening  eyes. 

Nor  has  the  experience  of  the  Church  in  this 
respect  been  unique.  One  sphere  after  another 
in    the    national    life    has   been   claimed  for   the 


214  THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 

kingdom  of  God,  alike  in  public  and  in  private, 
and  ultimately  the  claim  is  always  admitted,  the 
admission  often  coming  with  a  rush  in  the  end 
as  the  nation  is  born  in  a  day.  It  seems  to  be 
certain  that  as  the  logic  of  the  gospel  is  fully 
recognised,  nothing  whatever  will  be  allowed  to 
remain  outside  the  reach  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ 
or  hid  from  the  light  of  His  law. 

With  all  our  faults  as  a  people,  it  is  probable 
that  the  conscience  of  the  nation  was  never  more 
tender  in  regard  to  public  duty  than  it  is  now, 
and  even  as  Christianity  has  created  this  new 
conscience,  it  alone  can  guide  it  in  its  work.  The 
State  now  takes  the  duty  on  itself  of  caring  for  the 
poor,  and  securing  the  education  of  the  young ; 
but  the  Church  did  these  things  first,  and  it  was 
she  who  showed  the  way.  Nor  is  anything  more 
remarkable  in  modern  times  than  the  fashion  in 
which  the  older  conventions  and  prejudices  about 
State  interference  and  the  limitations  of  its  duties 
and  powers  have  been  put  to  flight,  and  not  least 
so  in  connection  with  labour. 

And  while  much  has  yet  to  be  done  before  the 
millennium  comes,  what  has  been  already  done  is 
the  surest  guarantee  of  ultimate  victory  over 
selfishness  and  sloth,  over  prejudice  and  greed. 
Good  men  no  longer  divide  their  lives  into  secular 
and  sacred,  as  concert  programmes  are  sometimes 
divided,  as  with  a  hatchet ;  and  almost  every- 
where the  claims  of  Christ  are  recognised  as 
imperial  and  all-embracing,  even  by  those  who 
as  yet  set  them  at  naught  in  practice. 

It  would  be  a  serious  blunder,  however,  to 
imagine  that  our  labour  troubles  as  a  nation  are 
practically  at  an  end,  or   that  nothing  but  good 


THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE  215 

has  come  to  the  labourer  through  the  advent  of 
this  new  era  in  which  he  is  an  employee  and  a 
citizen.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  has  brought  its 
own  evils  with  it,  and  has  accentuated  others 
which  were  already  in  existence. 

It  would  appear  that  no  advance  is  unalloyed 
gain,  and  not  only  is  the  new  relationship  not 
wholly  gain,  the  very  freedom  which  it  has 
brought  has  rendered  some  of  its  drawbacks 
and  limitations  all  the  more  intolerable.  The 
personal  tie,  for  example,  which  often  existed 
between  the  master  and  the  servant  has  been 
almost  lost  as  between  the  employer  and  the 
employee ;  and  the  new  anonymity  of  the  worker 
may  outrage  his  personality  in  a  fashion  impos- 
sible before,  and  inflict  the  supreme  wrong. 

In  the  huge  factory  which  the  era  of  machinery 
has  inflicted  on  us,  and  under  the  great  limited 
liability  company  or  syndicate,  the  worker  is  only 
a  hand,  and  has  only  a  number  and  no  longer  a 
name.  There  is  also  his  anonymity  at  times  in 
the  far-reaching  Trade  Union,  where,  again,  he 
may  be  only  an  insignificant  item  to  be  swept 
on  helplessly  to  share  in  much  of  which  he  does 
not  approve.  In  proportion,  too,  as  he  is  lifted 
up  as  free  and  responsible  the  worker  becomes, 
aware  after  a  new  sort  that  there  is  caste  in 
Britain  as  well  as  in  India,  and  that  very  many 
of  the  so-called  "  better  classes  "  look  down  on  the 
working  man,  and  that  both  in  the  Church  and 
in  the  State. 

The  truth  is  that  this  era  of  machinery,  the 
full  significance  of  which  is  so  seldom  realised,* 

*  The  problem  of  the  extension  of  the  use  of  machinery 
and  the   consequent  displacement  of  workers  is  one  which 


216  THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 

and  of  great  combinations  of  capitalists,  has 
dangers  all  its  own ;  while  many  of  the  kindlier 
features  of  the  ancien  regime,  with  all  their  mollify- 
ing influences,  are  no  longer  operative.  The  evils 
of  overcrowding  due  to  excessive  centralisation, 
for  instance,  are  very  great,  alike  as  regards  health 
and  morals,  and  they  are  practically  new.  Nor  can 
we  dare  to  hope  that  we  have  seen  the  last  or 
the  worst  of  that  feature  of  modern  industrialism. 

The  whole  tendency  is  in  the  other  direction 
and  towards  the  accentuation  of  the  disastrous 
consequences  of  herding  the  multitudes  into  over- 
grown cities.  The  serf  was  bound  to  his  work,  and 
so  is  the  modern  employee,  only  he  has  often  to 
follow  his  work,  so  that  local  ties,  and  even  family 
ties,  are  hopelessly  severed  and  he  is  lost  in  the 
crowd.  So  much  is  this  the  case  that  the  old 
Scottish  system  of  taking  houses  for  a  year  at  a 
time  is  now  felt  to  be  an  undoubted  grievance,  and 
has  been  recognised  as  such  by  a  Parliamentary 
Committee  on  the  subject  and  by  abortive  attempts 
at  legislation. 

The  fearful  monotony  of  the  labour  of  the 
employee,  too,  with  its  minute  subdivision,  also 
tends  to  assail  his  moral  life  in  the  most  disas- 
trous way,  and  is  probably  responsible  for  much 
of  the  hard  drinking  which  still  brings  so  much 
degradation  and  woe  and  only  makes  matters 
worse.     If  Emerson's  wail  about  the  bitter  fruits 

is  ever  becoming  more  serious,  and  yet  it  is  strangely  over- 
looked by  most.  It  is  hardly  referred  to  in  the  conflicts 
between  Free  Traders  and  Tariff  Reformers  as  a  menace, 
or  even  as  a  partial  menace.  Yet  in  almost  every  trade 
machinery  now  does  what  was  once  done  by  men  and  women, 
and  the  end  is  not  yet. 


THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE  217 

of  the  division  of  labour  were  justified  in  his 
time,  it  is  vastly  more  called  for  now.* 

Besides  all  this,  the  waste  of  the  present  system, 
is  enormous.  Its  wreckage  is  on  every  sea.  Its 
flotsam  and  jetsam  meet  us  wherever  we  turn.  It 
is  not  enough  to  show  by  statistics  that  the  wealth 
of  the  nation  is  shared  in  by  a  larger  number  of 
persons  than  ever  before,  although  it  would  be 
churlish  to  forget  that  fact,  or  to  ignore  its 
message  of  hope.  Nor  is  it  enough  to  show  that 
the  standard  of  living  has  risen  so  that  what 
used  to  satisfy  the  servant  does  not  satisfy  the 
employee,  although  we  may  well  rejoice  that  that 
also  is  beyond  question  true. 

The  portentous  fact  remains  and  cannot  be 
gainsaid  that  somehow  or  other  in  this  land  of 
ours,  with  all  its  wealth  and  its  sybarite  waste 
and  self-indulgence,  there  is  a  great  army  of 
decent  men  and  women  who  are  always  on  the 
verge  of  hunger,  it  may  be  on  the  verge  of  revolu- 
tion, and  that  the  wounded  and  dead  in  our 
industrial  conflict  in  this  Christian  land  are  a 
great  host.f 

Not  long  ago — at  the  end  of  the  year  1907 — 
Lord   Cromer    was    pointing  out    to    a    Scottish 

*  And  as  Dr.  Forsyth  remarks  when  speaking  of  the  lack 
of  security  and  fixity  of  tenure  in  connection  with  modem 
labour  :  "  No  wonder  if  the  frequent  efiEect  is  either  stupidity 
or  levity." 

t  "  We  see  that  the  average  wage  has  risen,  but  also  that  it 
now  amounts  to  but  £45  per  annum.  We  see  that  prices  have 
fallen,  but  remember  that  in  1905  one-third  of  our  population, 
in  spite  of  lower  prices,  have  not  sufficient  means  to  command 
a  proper  supply  of  the  conunon  necessaries  of  existence  " 
(Mr.  Chiozza  Money,  quoted  by  Miss  Stoddart,  "The  New 
Socialism,"  p.  35). 


218  THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 

audience  that  a  labourer  now  gets  about  65  per 
cent.,  a  factory  operative  75  per  cent.,  and  a  skilled 
mechanic  90  per  cent,  more  of  the  necessaries 
of  life  than  he  did  fifty  years  ago.  But  about 
the  same  time  statistics  were  published  which 
showed  that  in  the  city  of  Dundee  the  average 
weight  of  boys  of  thirteen  in  the  schools  in  the 
poorer  districts  was  about  9  lbs.  less  than  Mr. 
Francis  Galton's  averages  ;  and  that  the  average 
weight  of  the  girls  of  twelve  was  more  than 
9  lbs.  less  than  the  average  weight  of  the  girls 
in  a  secondary  school  in  the  same  city.  Nor  is 
it  many  years  since  it  was  reported  that  of  all 
the  children  who  die  in  the  City  of  Glasgow 
before  they  complete  their  fifth  year,  32  per  cent, 
die  in  houses  of  one  apartment,  and  not  2  per  cent, 
in  houses  of  five  apartments  and  upwards. 

It^is  more  than  likely  that  the  great  industrial 
and  trading  combinations  which  are  such  a  feature 
of  our  time  will  by  and  by  tend  to  mitigate  the 
severities  of  suicidal  competition  and  open  up 
the  way  to  a  better  time  when  the  evils  of  com- 
bination and  competition  will  both  be  transcended. 
They  may  also  give  the  State  lessons  in  com- 
bination for  the  benefit  of  the  many  and  not  of 
the  few,  and  thus  guide  the  nation  to  a  noble 
collectivism. 

But  meanwhile  the  evils  both  of  the  combination 
and  the  competition  are  with  us,  and  that  without 
the  mitigations  of  earlier  days  when  master  and 
man  met  face  to  face  and  had  more  in  common 
than  they  seem  to  have  now.  And  all  this  is 
telling  adversely  on  that  progress  in  personal 
character  which  is  the  ideal  and  goal.  The 
absence  of  personal  relations  in  modern  industry 


THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE  219 

makes  the  conditions  under  which  many  must 
dispose  of  their  labour  all  the  more  demoralising. 
The  personality  of  the  worker,  as  well  as  the 
personality  of  the  employer,  which  is  the  most 
sacred  thing  either  has,  cannot  but  suffer  sadly 
under  present  conditions. 

Those  who  know  the  problem  at  first  hand 
are  well  aware  that  that  is  where  the  iron  enters 
the  soul,  and  that  the  real  hurt  is  the  hurt  to  the 
moral  self.  Under  the  old  status  of  feudalism 
there  was  often  a  saving  sense  that  master  and 
servant,  even  when  the  latter  was  little  more 
than  a  serf,  were  held  together  by  mutual  interests 
and  mutual  dangers,  and  this  sense  of  community 
of  interests  and  of  fellowship  often  lifted  the 
drudge  out  of  his  low  estate  and  made  him  a  man. 
Even  as  a  serf  he  was  an  integral  part  of  the 
whole,  and  he  knew  that  he  would  be  missed  when 
he  was  gone. 

In  the  new  status,  however,  we  have  for  the 
most  part  instead  of  that  a  rankling  sense  of 
antagonism,  and  a  bitter  feeling  that  the  death 
of  a  horse  would  be  more  lamented  than  the  death 
of  a  worker  who  is  only  a  hand  to  be  easily  re- 
placed by  another  hand.  Capital  is  supposed  to 
gain  whatever  labour  loses,  while  labour  expects 
nothing  which  it  cannot  extort  and  hold  by  the 
strong  hand.  On  this  battlefield,  too,  it  is  often 
apparent  that  there  is  no  Society  of  the  Red  Cross 
to  care  for  the  stricken. 

On  both  sides  there  is  frequently  a  sad  want 
of  considerateness,  on  the  understanding  that  all 
is  thought  to  be  fair  in  hate  and  war.  When 
work  is  plentiful  the  employee  absents  himself 
without  concern  as  to  the  trouble  and  loss  he  is 


220    THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 

causing.  When  work  is  scarce  the  employee  is 
turned  adrift  with  equal  callousness.  I  have 
known  of  workmen  paid  off  in  batches  one  day 
for  want  of  material  and  taken  on  again  the  next 
day  when  the  material  had  come  forward ;  and 
certainly  if  nothing  else  suffers  in  such  a  trans- 
action, the  self-respect  of  the  labourer  as  well  as 
his  personality  must.  Any  thought  that  he  and 
his  employer  have  genuine  interests  in  common 
must  also  suffer. 

In  the  new  industrial  era,  too,  there  is  far  less 
fixity  of  tenure  in  many  trades  than  there  once 
was ;  and  every  fluctuation  of  the  money  market, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  operations  of  Corners  and 
Trusts,  working  as  ruthlessly  as  pirates  used  to 
work,  sends  crowds  of  workers  adrift. 

The  modern  limited  liability  company  has  no 
personality,  but  only  a  registered  office,  and  it 
can  seldom  afford  to  keep  a  conscience.  Its 
directors  have  the  need  for  paying  a  dividend 
and  of  facing  the  shareholders  ever  before  their 
eyes.  Nor  do  they  come  into  contact  with  their 
workers  as  employers  did  under  less  complex 
conditions.  Everything  is  done  through  paid 
officials,  who  are  not  free  to  listen  to  the  appeals 
of  sentiment,  and  are  often  not  free  to  listen  to 
the  demands  of  justice.  Foremen,  too,  in  such 
concerns  are  sadly  handicapped  when  they 
require  to  stand  like  buffers  between  the  two 
opposing  and  hostile  forces. 

Like  taxation  and  representation,  responsibility 
and  power  should  go  hand  in  hand,  and  that 
seems  to  be  seldom  possible  where  great  masses 
of  workers  are  employed.  The  result  of  this 
uncertainty  and  unsettlement  may  be  estimated 


THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE  221 

by  the  number  of  well-paid  tradesmen  who  are 
ready  to  sacrifice  part  of  their  wages  for  any 
employment  where  they  may  reasonably  expect 
to  be  kept  on  as  long  as  they  are  able  to  work 
and  perhaps  as  long  as  they  live.  It  is  some  sort 
of  fixity  of  tenure  which  the  best  workers  crave 
after,  and  yet  meanwhile  there  is  less  of  it  than 
ever  there  was. 

This  is  specially  true  of  those  who  are  called 
casual  labourers.  They  live  from  hand  to  mouth 
and  often  hardly  know  how  they  live.  They  are 
paid  by  the  hour  and  engaged  by  the  hour,  and 
just  because  they  are  never  sure  of  two  days' 
work  in  succession  they  never  save  anything ; 
they  have  seldom  anything  to  save. 

But  even  in  the  grade  above  this,  among  the 
artisans,  there  is  also  much  insecurity.  This 
reaches  its  climax  among  those  who  are  in  the 
building  trades  ;  but  in  almost  every  trade  there 
are  many  workers  who,  even  when  trade  is  fairly 
good,  are  not  sure  of  a  week's  work  at  a  time. 
The  removal  of  this  difficulty  would  do  more  than 
aught  else  to  beget  a  spirit  of  conciliation  among 
the  labouring  classes,  and  pave  the  way  to  an 
enduring  peace. 

And  this  is  a  moral  as  well  as  an  industrial 
question.  The  light  of  the  gospel  must  shine  on 
the  troubled  waters  before  the  storm  can  cease, 
and  unless  those  who  name  Christ's  name  let  it 
shine  all  round  they  are  no  better  than  empty 
cisterns  and  broken  reeds. 

The  bearing  of  the  new  industrial  era  on  the 
training  of  the  young,  and  on  the  whole  question 
of  apprenticeships,  is  also  very  far-reaching.  In 
many  of  the  largest  public  works,  such  as  sewing- 


222  THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 

machine  and  chair  factories,  apprentices  are  now 
practically  unknown.  Division  of  labour  has  been 
carried  so  far  that  apprentices  are  no  longer 
required,  since  no  one  learns  a  trade ;  there  are 
no  trades  to  learn. 

But  where  there  are  no  apprentices  there  are 
no  journeymen,  no  skilled  artisans,  that  is  ;  and 
the  moral  results  of  the  change  are  even  more 
important  than  the  economic,  important  as  these 
are.  When  bad  trade  comes  to  their  own  branch 
of  work  such  workers  are  helpless,  as  tradesmen 
of  the  right  sort  seldom  were ;  and  besides  that, 
there  is  the  subtle  loss  of  the  self-respect  which 
added  a  cubit  to  the  stature  of  the  man  who  knew 
his  trade  and  could  work  anywhere.  And  so 
another  blow  is  struck  at  the  growth  of  that 
moral  personality  which  is  at  the  foundation  of 
all  true  progress  and  reform,  and  of  a  true 
national  life. 

The  loss  to  the  lads  of  any  systematic  training 
during  their  making  and  marring  time  is  also 
a  very  serious  matter  for  the  nation.  The  change 
means  likewise  that  lads  and  young  girls  are  able 
to  earn  as  much  as  grown  men  or  women  do, 
with  disastrous  effects  on  many  a  home.  Many 
drift  out  of  their  homes  into  lodgings  and  into 
early  marriages  in  the  most  hurtful  fashion. 
Yet  the  laudable  attempts  which  are  being  put 
forth  to  increase  the  number  of  those  who  learn 
trades  are  not  likely  to  be  successful  so  long  as 
the  bulk  of  those  who  are  without  trades  in  the 
ordinary  sense  get  work  as  easily  as  those  who 
have  them.  The  gain  at  present  is  only  unques- 
tionable for  those  who  acquire  such  technical 
knowledge  in  addition  to  their  workshop  training 


THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE  223 

as    fits    them    for    becoming    managers    or    even 
inventors  in  the  days  to  come. 

The  era  of  the  employer,  then,  while  marking 
great  and  definite  advances  on  the  preceding 
stages  in  the  labourer's  progress  from  slavery 
to  perfect  freedom  and  manhood,  is  still  far  from 
realising  the  Christian  ideal,  and  the  call  is 
still  urgent  that  the  Church  of  Christ  should 
apply  the  principles  of  the  gospel  to  the  new 
relationship,  as  these  principles  were  so  fruitfully 
applied  to  the  relationships  which  preceded  it. 
The  Church  of  Christ  must  set  itself  in  every 
way  it  can  to  end  the  class  war.  In  the  Middle 
Ages  men  spoke  of  God's  Peace  and  the  King's 
Peace.  Let  us  in  these  days  have  the  Peace  of 
God  once  more,  and  in  fuller  form,  for  it  alone 
is  twice  blessed.  Instead  of  the  ill-omened  alliance 
between  the  altar  and  the  safe,  let  us  return  to 
the  older  and  better  alliance  between  the  altar 
and  the  hearth,  and  through  labour  claim  the 
home  for  God.  When  Christ  came  at  first  He 
found  the  Church  steeped  in  institutionalism  and 
traditionalism,  and  He  refounded  it  upon  working 
people,  and  there  is  no  other  way  in  which  His 
kingdom  can  come  in  our  time. 

The  Church  of  God  is  far  more  than  an  organisa- 
tion for  achieving  social  reform.  It  can  only  do 
that  if  it  does  vastly  more.  The  Jacob's  ladder 
which  it  sets  up  on  the  earth  must  not  only 
rest  on  the  earth  and  deal  with  the  everyday  life 
and  troubles  of  mankind,  it  must  enter  the  eternal 
and  unseen,  or  its  work  will  be  altogether  barren. 
At  the  bottom  of  the  world's  bitter  cup  of  woe 
lie  the  bitter  dregs  of  sin;  and  Christians  have 
always  done  most  for  the  social  amelioration  of 


224  THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 

the  oppressed  and  downtrodden  when  they  were 
loyal  to  the  evangelical  impulse  in  its  most  im- 
perative and  immediate  form. 

Social  amelioration  is  not  something  which 
grows  out  of  the  gospel,  it  is  the  gospel  itself 
in  its  concrete  application.  It  is  not  true  that 
by  such  precepts  as  "Resist  not  evil,"  and  its 
teaching,  "  The  poor  ye  have  always  with  you " 
Christianity  has  helped  to  hinder  social  reform 
and  keep  down  the  workers.  It  has  been  the 
best  friend  the  worker  has  ever  had,  and  all 
social  reform  has  grown  out  of  it.  To  establish 
right  relations  between  God  and  men  has  always 
been  the  royal  road  to  right  relations  between 
man  and  man. 

Yet  if  the  Church  of  Christ  is  to  be  in  perfect 
sympathy  with  her  Lord,  and  is  to  take  away 
the  stone  which  keeps  multitudes  in  the  tomb 
of  hostility  and  indifference  to  Divine  purity  and 
truth,  she  must  have  the  urgency  of  social 
reform  ever  on  her  heart  and  conscience ;  and 
the  widespread  conviction  that  this  has  not  always 
been  the  case,  as  it  ought  to  have  been,  has 
much  to  do  with  the  widespread  indifference  of 
working  men  to  the  Church.  As  long  as  it  is 
even  approximately  true  that  Christians  are  no 
better  than  others  in  their  treatment  of  their 
workers,  and  that  the  Priest  and  Levite  go  past 
on  the  other  side  when  they  see  men  and  women 
stricken  by  the  robberies  of  capitalism  and 
pagan  competition,  so  long  will  the  workers  be 
conspicuous  by  their  absence  from  the  sanctuary.* 

*  "The  right  comprehension  of  the  Christian  life  and  of 
the  spirit  and  tendency  of  Christian  history  should  show  that 
the  Church  should  use  its  influence  against  the  continuance 


THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE  225 

Whenever  the  end  of  the  ladder  which  rests  on 
the  solid  earth  has  been  neglected,  and  the  Church 
has  forgotten  those  among  whom  her  Master 
found  His  trophies  and  His  friends,  the  work  of 
the  Church  becomes  intangible  and  tends  to 
vanish  into  thin  air.  The  ladder  may  be  lost 
in  the  clouds,  but  no  angels  of  God  ascend  or 
descend. 

The  great  salvation  is  an  all-round  salvation. 
Those  who  follow  Christ  are  called  to  leaven  the 
whole  lump.  They  are  to  be  the  light  of  the  world 
and  the  salt  of  the  earth ;  and  the  Christians 
of  the  twentieth  century  must  face  the  problems 
with  which  it  has  come,  in  the  power  and  spirit 
of  their  Lord,  and  with  both  knowledge  and  zeal. 
Neither  God  nor  man  requires  ignorance  for  his 
service.  Neither  God  nor  man  can  bear  those  who 
are  lukewarm.  Our  readiness  to  apply  the  gospel 
will  be  the  measure  of  our  testimony  to  what  it 
has  done  for  us,  and  our  gratitude  for  God's 
greatest  gift. 

One  of  the  gravest  features  of  the  present 
situation,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the  manner  in  which 
modern  conditions  press  on  the  personality  of  the 
labourer,  and  tend  to  make  him  feel  increasingly 
that  he  is  of  no  account ;  that  he  is  only  a 
nameless  item,  a  numbered  hand,  to  be  replaced 
by  another  item  or  hand  equally  anonymous  when 
he  is  no  longer  deemed  fit  for  work.  No  burden 
on  a  man's  spirit  could  be  greater  than  that,  and 

of  the  struggle  for  existence  in  the  competitive  system,  and 
in  favour  of  the  less  fortunate,  who  in  the  coiu-se  of  that 
struggle  have  been  driven  to  precarious  wage-labovu*  as  their 
only  means  of  livelihood  "  (Kirkup,  "A  History  of  Socialism," 
page  268). 

ChrisUcmity  and  Labour.  XQ 


226  THE  LABOURER  AS  AN  EMPLOYEE 

only  Christ  can  provide  the  true  corrective  for 
it.  No  one  who  accepts  God's  good  news  can  feel 
that  he  is  lost  in  the  crowd.  He  knows  that  he 
is  a  priceless  soul  for  whom  Christ  died,  and  that 
he  has  been  reconciled  to  the  Father  by  the  work 
of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

Through  the  life  of  the  Christian  home,  too, 
the  gospel  can  strengthen  and  deepen  the  person- 
ality which  is  crushed  elsewhere  among  the 
jagged  wheels,  and  whatever  makes  for  the  well- 
being  of  the  home  ought  to  be  encouraged,  just 
as  everything  which  tends  to  belittle  it  or  rob  it 
of  its  influence  should  be  resolutely  opposed.  To 
honour  and  redeem  men  is  a  Christian  duty,  and 
the  Christian  patriot  has  a  great  field  for  service 
set  before  him  in  solving  every  evil  problem  from 
the  stronghold  of  the  Christian  home.  In  its 
purity,  unselfishness,  and  worship  it  should 
for  ever  be  showing  forth  in  miniature  what  the 
State  ought  to  be ;  and  it  should  continually 
proclaim  through  its  own  triumphs  that  the 
secret  of  all  power  is  in  Him  who  calls  those 
who  are  weary  and  heavy  laden  to  Him  that 
He  may  give  them  rest. 

In  the  ideal  Platonic  State  the  home  had  to 
be  eliminated  as  a  citadel  of  selfishness,  but  in 
the  ideal  State  of  Christ  the  home  is  the  spring 
from  which  the  healing  waters  flow,  and  is  the 
type  of  what  the  State  itself  should  be,  as  each 
looks  not  on  his  own  things  alone  but  also  on 
the  things  of  others,  as  the  Master  Himself  did. 


THE   CHRISTIAN   IDEAL 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

SLOWLY  but  surely  the  tide  has  risen  and 
the  condition  of  the  labourer  has  improved 
as  the  slave  became  a  serf;  the  serf  a  servant;  and, 
in  our  land  at  least,  the  servant  an  employee  and 
a  citizen  of  an  Empire  on  which  the  sun  never  sets. 
Not  only  so,  but  when  they  are  organised  and  united 
the  labourers  are  now  the  predominant  partner 
in  the  Empire,  and  can  enforce  their  demands.  Yet 
much  as  has  been  achieved,  and  although  nineteen 
Christian  centuries  have  come  and  gone  since  our 
Lord  came  to  begin  the  solution  of  every  moral 
problem,  the  labour  problem  is  as  acute  as  ever. 
That  is  partly  due,  of  course,  to  the  advance 
which  has  been  made,  and  to  the  way  in  which 
the  whole  outlook  of  the  labourer  on  life  has  been 
changed  for  the  better ;  and  it  would  be  to 
condemn  ourselves  to  despair  to  deny  that  the 
standard  of  living  has  been  raised,  or  that  very 
definite  progress  has   been  made.*     But  the  fact 

*  It  has  been  calculated  that  whereas  in  1839  a  carpenter 
whose  wages  were  24s.  a  week  required  24s.  lOd.  for  the 
ordinary  necessaries  of  life,  in  1875  a  carpenter  whose  wages 
were  35s.  a  week  only  required  29s.  Id.  for  the  same  require- 
ments ;  and  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  this  improvement 
has  been  maintained  since  then. 


230  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

remains  that  while  the  situation  is  hopeful  after 
a  new  sort  and  the  problem  has  changed  its  form, 
the  need  for  some  other  solution  than  we  have 
yet  attained  is  as  urgent  as  ever.  The  entire 
situation,  indeed,  is  full  of  danger  as  well  as  of 
hope,  and  there  are  possibilities  of  disaster  as 
well  as  of  final  victory  in  it  unless  the  solution 
is  found  soon. 

If  we  include  the  unskilled  as  well  as  the  skilled 
labourer  in  our  purview,  as  we  must,  alike  as 
Christians  and  economists,  we  find  the  worker  as 
much  in  the  rear,  relatively  to  the  rest  of  the 
community,  as  he  was  before  the  modern  move- 
ment began.  The  lot  of  vast  numbers,  especially 
among  those  whose  work  is  casual,  a  class  which 
is  constantly  increasing  owing  to  the  enormous 
development  of  machinery  and  the  centralisation 
of  industries,  is  still  very  miserable  and  full  of 
danger  for  the  Commonwealth. 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  estimate  the  number  of 
those  who  may  still  be  described  in  the  w^ords  of 
Lowell  as  "  low-browed,  stunted,  haggard  men," 
and  it  is  impossible  to  exaggerate  what  the 
existence  of  such  a  class  may  mean  for  the  nation 
in  these  days  of  social  upheaval.  In  many  respects 
their  condition  is  not  essentially  different  from 
that  of  the  slaves  who  toiled  in  the  factories  and 
fields  throughout  the  Empire  when  our  Lord 
was    here    among    men.*      They    are    almost    as 

*  Even  individualists  are  aware  of  the  serious  condition  of 
things  in  this  respect.  ' '  I  am  no  more  content  than  are  the 
Socialists  vrith  things  as  they  are,  and  I  most  earnestly  desire 
that  they  should  be  made  better,  and  would  gladly  consent  to 
any  and  every  pecuniary  sacrifice  demanded  by  the  Socialists 
if  I  thought  that  such  sacrifices  would  provide  a  remedy" 
(Mr.  St.  Loe  Strachey  in  the  Spectator). 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  231 

hopeless  from  the  religious  standpoint,  for  it  is 
not  the  jeer  of  the  enemy  alone,  but  the  wail  of 
the  Church  herself,  which  proclaims  that  she  has 
lost  any  hold  she  ever  had  on  the  proletariat. 

Physical  destitution  has  stifled  spiritual  yearn- 
ings, and  they  are  like  sheep  in  their  death. 
Nor  is  it  any  relief  to  show  that  in  our  complex 
civilisation  these  masses  include  many  who  have 
lapsed  through  their  own  fecklessness  or  vice. 
That  only  makes  the  problem  the  sadder  and  more 
urgent.  And  quite  apart  from  any  question  of 
weakness  or  vice,  the  interval  which  still  separates 
the  lowest  from  the  highest,  the  millworker  who 
dies  in  the  workhouse  from  the  manufacturer  who 
dies  a  millionaire,  the  hunger-stricken  from  the 
sybarite,  is  not  essentially  less  than  that  which 
separated  the  slave  from  the  slave-owner  in  the 
first  century  of  our  era,  of  the  serf  from  the 
baron  in  the  twelfth. 

It  may  be  true  that  it  cannot  now  be  honestly 
maintained  that  capital  is  still  being  concentrated 
into  the  hands  of  the  few^,  with  the  result  that 
the  masses  are  becoming  more  and  more  im- 
poverished. It  is  probably  better  distributed  now 
than  it  has  ever  been;  but  it  is  still  open  to 
question  whether  even  relatively  the  labourer  is 
getting  a  larger  share  than  he  did  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  nation's  wealth.  There  can  be  no 
question  that  absolutely  he  is  not  getting  his 
fair  share.* 

*  Mr.  Chiozza  Money  has  estimated  the  population  of  the 
United  Kingdom  at  forty-three  millions  and  the  income  at 
£1,710,000,000,  and  that  it  is  divided  as  follows  :  A  million  and 
a  quarter  of  the  rich  get  £585,000,000  ;  three  and  three-quarter 
raillions  of  the  comfortable  get  £245,000,000  ;  leaving  thirty 
millions  of  people  for  the  remaining  £880,000,000. 


232  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

The  Right  Hon.  Charles  Booth,  whose  labours 
in  this  department  have  made  him  an  expert 
authority,  has  calculated  that  owing  to  insufficient 
wages,  fluctuating  employment,  and  general  pre- 
cariousness  of  the  means  of  support,  as  many  as 
30  per  cent,  of  the  entire  population  of  London 
belong  to  the  class  whom  he  describes  as  poor, 
while  300,000  live  in  houses  of  one  apartment. 
Of  the  entire  population  of  England  and  Wales 
more  than  11  per  cent,  live  in  overcrowded 
homes — that  is,  in  houses  with  more  than  two 
persons  to  the  apartment ;  while  it  is  computed 
that  in  the  Scottish  towns  over  a  million  are  living 
in  overcrowded  houses  of  one  or  two  rooms.  Of 
those  who  were  over  sixty  years  of  age  in  England 
and  Wales  in  the  year  1890,  as  many  as  218,743 
were  in  receipt  of  poor  relief.  These  are  terrible 
figures  in  this  era  of  the  employee  and  citizen ;  and 
they  suggest  how  little  the  franchise  may  mean 
for  many  a  labourer,  and  how  little  it  may 
uplift  him  to  know  that  he  is  no  longer  a 
servant. 

It  must  not  for  one  moment  be  imagined  that 
we  have  reached  anything  like  finality  in  the 
upward  march  of  the  labourer  from  the  depths 
of  his  bondage,  or  that  Christians  can  leave  things 
to  take  their  course  as  if  social  salvation  could 
come  automatically.  There  are  many  side  tracts, 
too,  which  the  new  spirit  has  not  yet  reached,  and 
on  which  the  new^  light  has  hardly  fallen.  How 
shameful  it  is,  for  example,  that  women  and 
children  should  still  require  to  work  in  shops  for 
seventy  or  eighty  hours  a  week  because  of  the 
thoughtlessness  of  other  women  who  never  work 
at  all,  and  the  selfishness  of  men  who  work  only 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  233 

fifty-one  or  fifty-four  hours  in  the  week  and  are 
crying  out  that  that  is  too  long. 

The  new  tenderness  is  very  erratic  and  sectional 
as  yet,  and  there  is  still  much  land  to  be  possessed. 
It  may  be,  indeed,  that  we  shall  never  reach  the 
goal  until  yet  another  description  can  be  applied 
to  the  labourer,  and  we  can  speak  of  him  not  only 
as  having  been  a  slave,  a  serf,  a  servant,  and  an 
employee,  but  as  now  being  an  employer  ;  that  is, 
of  course,  his  own  employer.  If  that  height  could 
be  attained  and  kept  the  labour  strife  would  of 
necessity  come  to  an  end.  There  would  not  only 
be  to  each  his  work,  but  for  each  the  reward  of 
his  work. 

For  this  some  look  hopefully  in  the  direction 
of  co-operation,  and  it  is  interesting  to  find  that 
co-operative  societies  in  Great  Britain  have  now 
an  annual  turnover  of  more  £110,000,000,  and  have 
more  than  two  and  a  quarter  million  members.* 
But  although  these  societies  have  over  a  hundred 
thousand  employees,  they  have  not  been  able  as 
yet  to  make  the  worker  his  own  employer,  and 
so  to  render  the  common  interests  of  capital  and 
labour  not  only  a  theory  but  a  fact. 

The  truth  is  that  much  as  this  movement  may 
have  done  in  connection  with  distribution,  it 
has  hardly  touched  the  fringe  of  the  vastly 
more  important,  as  well  as  vastly  more  difficult, 
problem  of  production.     The  present  system  may 

*  The  volume  of  business  in  the  English  Wholesale  Co- 
operative Society  rose  from  £51,957  in  1864,  to  £24,902,842 
in  1908,  and  it  has  more  than  18,600  employees.  The 
corresponding  Wholesale  Society  in  Scotland  has  nearly 
7,600  employees,  and  its  sales  rose  from  £196,041  in  1870  to 
£7,531,126  in  1908. 


234  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

add  something  to  the  income  of  the  members 
of  the  various  societies,  but  it  is  solving  no  vital 
social  problem  ;  whereas  co-operative  production 
would  open  up  the  way  to  the  labour  millennium 
were   it   only  universalised. 

Profit-sharing  has  also  been  advocated  with  a 
view  to  this  end,  as  well  as  to  provide  work- 
men with  some  interest  in  the  prosperity  of 
the  companies  for  which  they  work,  by  making 
them  shareholders  on  a  tiny  scale.  As  yet, 
however,  this  has  hardly  caused  much  more 
than  a  ripple  on  the  surface  of  the  pool.*  One 
of  the  most  interesting  of  these  schemes  is  that 
associated  with  the  name  of  Sir  Christopher 
Furness  at  Hartlepool.  It  has  been  in  exist- 
ence for  little  more  than  a  year,  but  the  first 
report  was  full  of  hope.  The  employee  share- 
holders are  to  receive  a  9  per  cent,  dividend 
and  the  ordinary  shareholders  10  per  cent.  The 
directors  say :  "  Under  the  new  conditions  of 
employment  operations  at  the  shipyards  have 
proceeded    with    comfort    to    all   concerned,    and 

*  According  to  the  "Daily  News  Year  Book," at  the  end  of 
1909  there  were  112  businesses  which  had  adopted  the  prin- 
ciple of  co-partnership.  These  have  a  capital  of  £1,941,112  ; 
and  dm-ing  the  year  their  output  was  £4,214,542 ;  while 
a  profit  was  made  of  £182,663.  In  the  town  of  Ketter- 
ing there  is  a  co-partnership  clothing  factory  and  a  co-part- 
nership corset  factory,  with  1,150  employees.  They  have 
an  aggregate  capital  of  £64,873,  and  during  1909  one  work- 
men's society  which  made  a  profit  of  £5,509  allocated  it  as 
follows  :  To  shares  at  5  per  cent.,  £704  ;  to  customers  at  7d. 
in  the  £  on  purchases,  £2,130  ;  to  workers  at  ls.4^d.  in  the 
£  on  wages,  £1,504  ;  to  share  capital  in  addition  to  5  percent, 
interest,  £375 ;  to  reserve  fund,  £440 ;  with  various  other 
minor  payments. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  235 

as  a  consequence  with  results  in  work  highly 
satisfactory  to  our  customers  as  well  as  to 
ourselves.  Having  in  view^  not  only  the  pleasure 
such  facts  afford  the  directors  and  staff,  but 
more  particularly  the  importance  of  meeting  the 
convenience  and  fulfilling  the  wishes  of  those 
for  whom  the  boats  are  built  and  repaired, 
to  whom  both  duty  and  self-interest  dictate 
that  our  best  service  should  be  rendered, 
the  Board  experience  satisfaction  in  making 
known  the  fact  that  every  steamer  built  and 
repaired  since  the  commencement  of  the  co- 
partnery scheme  has  been  delivered  in  strict 
accordance  with  the  terms  of  the  contract.  It 
may  be  noted  that  in  a  case  where  the  company 
undertook  to  lengthen  a  steamer  for  a  valued 
customer  in  six  weeks,  to  enable  it  to  resume 
its  position  by  a  fixed  date  on  the  line  in  which 
it  was  engaged,  the  work  was  completed  in 
six  days  less  than  the  stipulated  time.  This  is 
only  a  sample  of  the  evidence  as  to  the  value 
of  the  scheme  and  the  loyalty  of  the  men."  * 

Perhaps  the  most  hopeful  difference  between 
the  labour  problem  in  the  present  era  and  at 
any  former  time  is  that  there  is  a  growing 
recognition  of  what  the  problem  actually  is,  and 
a  growing  determination  that  some  worthy  solu- 
tion of  it  must  be  found.  All  men  see  more 
clearly  now  than   ever    before    that    the   nation 

*  Somewhat  unexpectedly  the  workmg-men  co-partners 
have  voted  against  the  continuance  of  this  scheme  by  a 
majority  of  106.  This  is  attributed  to  several  causes,  one 
of  them  being  that  a  large  number  of  the  men  have  been 
disappointed  because  the  scheme  has  not  provided  the  con- 
stant employment  which  they  anticipated. 


236  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

dare  not  perpetuate  the  existence  of  a  class 
exposed  to  continuous  degradation  and  always 
on  the  verge  of  starvation,  if  not  actually 
below  the  subsistence  line. 

That  the  Empire  may  come  to  be  governed 
by  the  votes  of  this  class  adds  an  element 
almost  of  comedy  to  a  situation  which  is  very 
tragic.  Nor  is  it  likely  that  any  of  the  ordi- 
nary conventions  or  superstitions  will  be  allowed 
to  block  the  way.  The  generation  which  has 
made  such  inroads  on  personal  liberty  in  order 
to  extirpate  infectious  diseases  and  the  like  is 
now  recognising  that  it  is  equally  imperative 
that  hotbeds  of  social  disease  be  not  allowed  to 
persist.  "  God  is  in  the  poorest  man's  cottage. 
It  is  advisable  that  He  be  well  housed."  So 
says  Ruskin,  and  all  the  people  say  amen. 

It  is  in  this  growing  recognition  of  what  the 
problem  is,  and  in  this  determination  so  surely 
born  of  the  spirit  of  Christ,  that  we  can  find  hope 
for  the  days  to  come  if  we  are  to  find  it  anywhere. 
With  all  our  pessimism,  apparent  and  real,  there 
is  a  widespread  confidence,  which  means  much  for 
the  future,  that  the  nation  can  do  what  it  so 
clearly  sees  it  ought  to  do  ;  and  it  is  with  the 
advent  of  such  assurance  that  fruitful  effort 
begins. 

It  is  not  until  things  have  begun  to  mend  that 
we  have  the  promise  and  potency  of  effective 
reform.  It  is  not  despair,  but  hope,  that  is  fruitful 
in  achievement.  Research  has  made  it  clear  that 
it  was  so,  for  example,  in  connection  with  the 
great  French  Revolution  which  did  so  much  for 
the  whole  of  Europe.  It  was  not  when  the 
wretchedness     and     misery    of     the     old    system 


THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  237 

were  at  their  worst  that  the  momentous  out- 
break took  place.  It  was  when  the  new  day 
had  actually  begun  to  break,  and  new  hopes 
were  stirring  in  their  hearts,  that  the  people 
rose  in  cruel  wrath  to  make  a  crowning  effort 
to  secure  deliverance  and  freedom.  And  so  it 
was  also  in  connection  with  the  long,  silent  revolu- 
tion which  we  have  been  tracing,  which  made  the 
mediaeval  peasants  free  citizens,  and  is  by  and  by 
to  make  all  men  free  and  give  them  an  environ- 
ment consistent  with  a  clean  and  healthy,  moral, 
and  spiritual  life.  It  did  not  grow  out  of  despair, 
but  out  of  hope.  Despair  is  always  futile  and 
barren,  and  cruel  withal ;  whereas  hope  makes 
ordinary  men  heroes  and  heroes  giants. 

So  far  as  the  Continent  is  concerned  we  can 
even  specify  the  birthday  and  birthplace  of  this 
new  spirit  of  expectation.  It  was  born  at  Courtrai, 
in  Belgium  in  the  year  1302,  when  for  the  first 
time  lowly-born  burghers  discovered  that  they 
could  conquer  mail-clad  knights  on  the  battlefield. 
Then  was  the  fateful  Day  of  Spurs,  when  four 
thousand  golden  spurs  were  hung  up  in  the 
Cathedral  as  an  offering  to  God,  and  then  also 
was  the  day  of  new  hope.  It  is  a  true  instinct 
which  still  leads  the  Belgians  to  celebrate  the 
anniversary  of  that  day.  A  new  sense  of  their 
manhood,  a  new  recognition  of  what  might  after 
all  be  achieved,  then  thrilled  though  those  who  had 
hitherto  accepted  their  fate  as  predestined  hewers 
of  wood  and  drawers  of  water,  and  all  through 
the  Germanic  peoples  it  set  the  forces  in  motion 
which  were  yet  to  turn  chattels  into  free  men  and 
self-governing  nations. 

It  was  out  of  that  new  hope  in  the  heart  of  the 


238  THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

labourers  and  the  new  vision  to  which  it  gave 
birth — and  surely  hope  and  vision  alike  were 
born  of  Christ — that  almost  everything  has  grown 
which  has  made  their  lot  nobler  and  brighter,  and 
will  yet  complete  the  redeeming  work.  It  is 
Christ  who  is  still  calling  the  dead  from  their 
tombs,  for  it  is  He  who  renews  the  soul,  and  out 
of  that  renewed  personality  there  comes  life 
from  the  dead. 

Nothing  but  hope  can  save  the  nations,  and 
therefore  it  is  that  there  is  such  encouragement 
in  the  conviction  now  so  widespread  that  a  new 
era  is  at  hand  ;  that  things  can  be,  and  therefore 
must  be,  put  right.  Some  of  the  proposed  solutions 
may  be  fantastic  and  illogical,  but  the  hope  itself 
is  deathless,  because  Divine.  The  nations  are  not 
called  to  leap  into  the  dark,  but  into  the  light. 
The  call  of  the  new  era  is  not  to  do  or  die,  but  to 
do  and  live,  and  if  only  God's  truth  has  free 
scope  and  is  glorified  in  the  lives  of  His  people 
there  can  be  no  doubt  either  as  to  their  obedience 
or  as  to  the  grand  result. 

In  the  slow  but  steady  evolution  of  the  citizen- 
employee,  perhaps  the  least  influential  element 
has  been  that  of  legislation,  although  of  necessity 
that  is  just  the  element  which  has  attracted  most 
attention.  Mr.  Benjamin  Kidd  says  that  "the 
evolution  which  is  slowly  proceeding  in  human 
society  is  not  primarily  intellectual,  but  religious 
in  character,"  *  and  religious  forces  are  inevitably 
those  which  are  most  out  of  sight. 

In    the    history  of  labour  the    legislature    has 

*  Professor  Alfred  Marshall  has  it  that  "the  two  great 
forming  agencies  in  the  world's  history  have  been  the 
Beligious  and  the  Economic." 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  239 

seldom  if  ever  laid  itself  open  to  the  charge  of 
anticipating  public  opinion,  at  least  for  ameliora- 
tion ;  and  it  has  usually  lagged  far  behind  in  the 
race.  The  Acts  of  Parliament  which  stand  out  as 
landmarks  along  the  pathway  of  progress  and 
tell  of  what  was  going  on  in  the  centuries  other- 
wise silent,  are  for  the  most  part  the  effects  and 
not  the  causes  of  reform. 

In  the  past,  indeed,  the  legislature  has  done 
little  more  than  register  changes  which  had 
already  taken  place  ;  and  usually  these  changes 
were  not  due  to  political  influences,  but  to  moral 
and  spiritual  as  well  as  economic  forces,  which 
were  none  the  less  real  that  we  see  them  only 
through  the  haze  of  the  years  and  are  quite  un- 
able to  tabulate  them  as  we  would  like  to  do. 

And  so  it  will  probably  continue  to  be.  The 
battlefield  will  be  all  over  the  land  and  not 
merely  at  Westminster  ;  and  Westminster  will  be 
content  to  bring  up  the  rear.  The  hardest  w^ork 
will  be  over  when  Parliament  puts  its  seal  on  the 
higher  heights  which  have  been  attained.  The 
faith  of  not  a  few  in  the  redemptive  power  of  Acts 
of  Parliament  is  as  unfounded  as  it  is  pathetic. 
Yet  legislation  has  its  place,  for  without  it  the 
stamp  of  permanence  cannot  be  put  on  w^hat  has 
been  accomplished;  and  it  is  amazing  how  soon 
measures  which  were  passed  in  the  face  of  bitter 
opposition  bring  the  whole  nation  up  to  their  level, 
so  that  they  are  not  only  accepted  cheerfully  but 
become  the  starting-point  for  further  reform. 

It  is  often  affirmed  that  a  nation  cannot  be 
made  moral  by  Act  of  Parliament,  but  wise 
legislation  has  an  enormous  influence  in  forming 
and      guiding      public      opinion.       The      Forbes 


240  THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

Mackenzie  Act,  by  means  of  which  Scotland 
obtained  the  benefits  of  Sunday  closing  more 
than  half  a  century  ago,  is  an  outstanding 
instance  of  this.  That  measure  was  so  much 
opposed  at  the  time  and  w^as  received  with  such 
disfavour  that  within  a  year  of  its  being  passed 
a  Parliamentary  Committee  w^as  appointed  to 
inquire  into  its  operation  and  see  whether  it 
should  be  continued.  Yet  no  one  ever  suggests 
now  that  the  nation  should  go  back  to  its  old 
ways.  The  cry  rather  is  that  England  should 
have  a  similar  Act. 

All  the  same,  it  is  becoming  more  and  more 
manifest  that  the  Labour  battle  w^ill  not  be 
fought  to  its  finish  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
When  the  better  time  comes  when  the  class  war 
between  labour  and  capital  is  at  an  end,  when 
the  cruel  waste  of  the  present  system  has  ceased, 
and  when  the  labourer  gets  his  fair  share  of  the 
fruits  of  his  industry  and  skill  out  of  the  common 
purse,  that  blessed  consummation  will  have  been 
reached  mainly  through  moral  and  spiritual  in- 
fluences, and  among  these  Christianity  must  be 
supreme  or  abandon  its  claim  to  be  from  God. 
The  very  failure  of  the  State  to  bring  in  this  better 
day  of  itself,  or  rather  the  incompleteness  of  its 
work  of  itself,  indicates  that  the  nation  must  turn 
to  Christ  for  leading  and  power. 

Nowhere  save  in  the  gospel  of  God's  grace  can 
the  necessary  driving  pow^er  be  found,  the  force 
which  alone  can  secure  that  change  of  heart  and 
will  without  which  enduring  reforms  can  never  be 
accomplished.  Legislative  reform  of  itself  may  be 
no  more  than  a  mere  veneer,  so  that  if  you  scratch 
the  unregenerate  modern  you  may  soon  come  on 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  241 

the  primeval  savage,  perhaps  even  the  primeval 
brute. 

But  what  has  been  already  accomplished  is  the 
proof  that  although  we  can  point  to  far  too  few 
evidences  of  definite  action  in  the  evolution  of  the 
free  labourer,  Christianity  has  nevertheless  been 
at  work  all  through  as  the  leaven  of  the  whole 
lump,  the  light  of  the  world,  the  salt  of  the  earth ; 
and  that  it  has  done  vastly  more  than  is  sometimes 
supposed  to  lift  men  out  of  the  depths  and  to 
keep  the  noblest  of  all  ideals  before  them. 

The  development  of  personality  on  a  wide  scale 
really  begins  with  the  gospel,  and  that  is  the 
starting-point  of  everything  which  labour  has 
achieved.  The  inadequacy  of  legislation  without 
moral  impulses,  and  of  economic  forces  without 
spiritual  power  either  to  bring  about  permanent 
reform  or  to  account  for  it,  renders  it  imperative 
that  the  Christian  ideal  should  be  set  forth  in  the 
full  assurance  that  in  it  alone  can  the  power  be 
found  which  will  lead  to  the  social  millennium  after 
which  so  many  aspire. 

Not  that  it  is  easy  to  set  this  ideal  forth  in 
specific  terms.  It  is  spirit,  and  eludes  analysis 
and  even  exposition.  Yet  it  must  be  set  forth  in 
modern  terms  and  so  as  to  guide  and  satisfy 
modern  aspirations ;  and  must  include  such  de- 
mands as  these :  That  a  man's  daily  work  be 
recognised  as  his  divine  calling,  his  sacred  voca- 
tion ;  that  the  place  of  the  workman  in  the  organic 
unity  both  of  the  Church  and  the  State  be  fully 
and  gratefully  acknowledged ;  that  a  living  wage 
be  secured  for  the  labourer  while  he  is  fit  for 
w^ork,  so  that  he  be  able  to  live  a  decent  and 
Christian  life  and  have  a  suitable  home ;  that  an 

Christianity  and  Labour.  l_7 


242  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

adequate  provision  be  made  somehow  for  the 
labourer  when  he  is  aged,  or  otherwise  unfit  for 
work,  so  that  the  veterans  of  labour  may  be 
spared  the  stigma  of  pauperism ;  and  that  there 
be  some  final  court  of  appeal  with  adequate  com- 
pulsory powers  in  connection  with  all  industrial 
disputes.  And  now  we  shall  look  at  these  demands 
in  turn,  that  we  may  see  how  this  many-sided 
Christian  ideal  might  be  realised  in  our  national 
life. 

The  daily  work  of  the  labourer  ought  to  he  recog- 
nised as  his  divine  vocation.  That  the  Son  of  Man 
is  among  us  as  One  who  serves,  and  that  His 
"Divine  hand  touched  the  plane,"  ought  to  spirit- 
ualise all  labour ;  and  unless  it  be  so  spiritualised 
it  is  not  possible  to  rescue  the  labourer  from  the 
secular  and  servile  spirit.  So  long  as  labour  is 
an  unsanctified  remainder,  the  spirit  of  drudgery 
which  debases  everything  it  touches  will  be 
supreme  in  the  greater  part  of  human  activity. 

There  can  be  no  true  and  enduring  dignity  of 
labour  until  it  is  lifted  to  this  level ;  and  much  as  is 
said  about  the  dignity  of  labour,  the  dignity  of 
idleness  is  in  the  ascendant  meanwhile.*  Even  the 
idealists  labour  as  little  as  they  can.  Just  as  the 
ancients  set  themselves  to  get  their  work  done  by 
slaves,  vicious  and  wasteful  as  they  knew  the 
system  to  be,  there  are  many  moderns  who  either 
work  as  little  as  they  can,  or  do  all  their  work 

*  M.  Paiil  Lafargue,  a  son-in-law  of  Marx,  has  written  a 
pamphlet,  "  Le  Droit  k  la  Paresse,"  which  has  been  described 
as  "An  Ode  to  Laziness,"  and  has  been  translated  into 
almost  every  European  language  (see  Miss  Stoddart,  "The 
New  Socialism,"  pp.  46,  203).  (The  idle  poor  are  to  seek 
to  parody  the  idle  rich.) 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  243 

with  the  hope  of  being  able  to  retire  from  it  soon 
and  do  nothing  during  the  remainder  of  their  days. 

"  The  freemen  of  Rome  could  hardly  be  said  to 
work,  they  fought  or  lived  on  the  produce  of  fight- 
ing." "  One  of  the  leading  features  of  Attic  cul- 
ture was  the  contempt  of  trade,  or  indeed  of  any 
occupation  which  so  absorbed  a  man  as  to  deprive 
him  of  complete  leisure,"  *  and  it  is  this  false 
pagan  ideal  which  is  again  sought  after  by  very 
many.  The  underpaid  clerk  not  only  thinks  him- 
self superior  to  the  artisan  w^ho  has  to  soil  his 
hands,  but  even  in  the  Church  many  agree  with 
him  and  show  him  a  deference  they  deny  to  the 
other.  As  for  the  talk  about  the  "  horny  hand," 
and  much  else  of  the  same  sort,  it  is  mainly  cant. 

Some  think  that  it  is  only  in  connection  with 
religion,  or  the  want  of  it,  that  inconsistency 
abounds  ;  but  it  gathers  round  many  who  study 
Carlyle  and  Ruskin  and  talk  about  the  glory  of 
handicrafts  and  the  nobility  of  those  who  conquer 
the  waste  places  and  make  the  wondrous  purpose 
of  the  Creator  explicit  by  their  toil.  Splendid  as 
their  doctrine  is,  they  are  content  to  let  others  call 
forth  the  implicit  in  nature  by  their  industry  and 
skill. 

Idleness  is  rightly  included  among  the  deadly 
sins,  and  it  cannot  be  too  strongly  insisted  on  that 
any  worker,  be  he  artisan  or  artist  or  author,  who 
does  less  than  his  best  is  not  only  an  inferior  work- 
man, but  a  bad  man.  The  best  work  can  be  done 
only  when  it  is  seen  to  be  a  holy  vocation.  Those 
alone  can  do  their  best  who  hear  Christ  saying  to 
them :  "  Raise  the  stone  and  thou  shalt  find  Me. 

*  The  only  man  in  the  Greek  State  deemed  worthy  of 
esteem  was  he  who  did  not  require  to  work. 


244  THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

Cleave  the  wood  and  there  I  am  also."  "In  the 
elder  days  of  art  the  builders  wrought  with 
greatest  care,  each  minute  and  unseen  part,  for 
the  great  God  sees  everywhere." 

It  is  easy  enough  to  understand  and  sympathise 
with  the  demand  of  the  Social  Democratic  Federa- 
tion when  they  advocate  a  forty-eight  hours  week, 
with  a  minimum  wage  of  thirty  shillings  a  week 
for  all  workers.  It  is  easy,  also,  to  see  that  it  is  a 
recognition  of  the  dignity  of  labour  to  insist  on 
equal  pay  for  both  sexes  for  the  performance  of 
equal  work.  But  when  a  writer  like  the  author 
of  "  The  Evolution  of  the  Fourth  Estate,"  says  that 
just  as  it  is  the  interest  of  the  employer  to  get  as 
much  work  out  of  his  w^orkers  for  as  little  wages 
as  possible,  it  is  the  interest  of  the  workers  to  get 
as  high  wages  as  possible  for  as  little  labour  as 
possible,  it  is  obvious  that  he  is  on  wrong  lines, 
and  that  nothing  but  moral  and  economic  disaster 
await  those  who  occupy  such  a  position. 

It  may  be  the  application  of  the  principle  which 
passes  current  with  so  many,  that  the  first  duty  of 
man  is  to  sell  in  the  dearest  and  buy  in  the 
cheapest  market,  but  it  inflicts  the  supreme  insult, 
the  unpardonable  outrage  on  labour.  It  removes 
it  from  the  moral  sphere  and  robs  it  of  its  essential 
dignity.  Yet  the  likelihood  is  that  he  was  simply 
putting  into  words  the  debased  and  debasing 
theory  which  is  operative  in  multitudes  of  lives, 
and  is  working  infinite  woe.  Wherever  the  ideal 
is  that  the  worker  should  work  as  little  as  he  can, 
there  can  be  no  thought  of  work  as  a  divine 
calling  and  something  done  for  God,  and  in  co- 
operation with  God ;  and  the  secularisation  and 
degradation  of  human  activity  is  inevitable. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  245 

Some  other  pathway  than  that  must  be  found  to 
the  golden  age  which  is  yet  to  come ;  another  way 
than  the  consecration  of  laziness  and  the  exaltation 
of  cynicism  is  not  far  to  seek. 

Everyone  has  heard  it  said  of  some  worker 
manifestly  happy  in  his  work  that  he  had  found 
his  vocation,  and  therein  we  see  what  ought  to  be 
the  ideal  for  all.  It  is  in  the  interest  of  the 
organism  that  each  worker  should  get  his  right 
work  to  do,  the  work  to  which  his  gifts  have  called 
him,  the  work  he  can  do  with  satisfaction  and 
pleasure.  "  The  tools  belong  to  the  man  who  can 
use  them,"  and  the  end  of  all  education,  whether  in 
the  home  or  the  school,  should  be  to  place  each 
where  he  can  use  his  tools  to  the  best  advantage. 
Only  thus  can  society  be  a  genuine  moral  organism. 
Only  thus  can  the  best  work  be  done  and  every 
talent  employed.  Only  thus  can  the  ordinary  and 
commonplace  be  made  divine. 

It  is  the  tragedy  of  many  a  life,  and  what  makes 
labour  hateful  to  multitudes,  that  the  square  men 
are  so  often  forced  into  round  holes,  although  all 
the  while  the  square  holes  which  they  should  have 
filled  are  either  empty  or  filled  by  similar  misfits. 
The  gifts  which  every  child  possesses  ought  to  be 
so  developed  that  every  worker  will  find  himself  at 
the  work  he  was  meant  to  do,  and  in  doing  which 
alone  he  can  either  find  his  true  self  or  truly  serve 
the  social  order  of  which  he  is  a  necessary  and 
integral  part. 

Those  who  are  so  trained  and  placed  are  not 
likely  to  count  their  working  hours  little  more 
than  lost,  or  to  think  mainly  of  the  time  when 
they  can  throw  down  their  tools  and  enjoy  them- 
selves.    Nor  does  it  follow  that  those  whose  gifts 


246  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

or  bent  cannot  be  discovered  are  doomed  to  be 
misfits  or  mere  unskilled  labourers.  God  indicates 
His  will  regarding  the  work  which  each  should  be 
fitted  to  do  not  only  by  the  bestowal  of  gifts  which 
all  can  discern,  but  also  by  environment. 

Our  circumstances  must  not  be  looked  at  as  if 
they  were  ours  apart  from  Him,  or  as  if  they  had 
no  message  for  the  work  of  life.  If  environment 
be  so  secularised  there  will  be  little  that  is  ideal 
left  in  the  lives  of  most ;  and  those  workers  who 
loyally  follow  the  leading  of  their  circumstances, 
and  seek  through  education  and  opportunity  to 
know  the  will  of  God  and  do  it,  will  assuredly  find 
that  whatever  their  work  is  it  is  God's  calling  for 
them. 

As  for  the  occupations  which  all  would  avoid 
if  they  could,  and  which  are  filthy,  oppressive, 
dangerous,  and  even  degrading,  machinery  is 
already  doing  much  to  solve  that  problem,  even 
if  it  also  adds  to  it  somewhat ;  and  it  will  un- 
doubtedly do  more.  For  the  rest,  a  little  arrange- 
ment combined  with  some  unselfishness  would 
easily  prevent  what  remains  being  made  a 
drudgery  for  any  class.  In  many  cases,  indeed, 
such  work  might  be  reserved  for  such  criminals 
as  may  still  be  found  in  the  ideal  state.  As 
things  are,  however,  this  work  falls  to  a  sort 
of  helot  or  pariah  class,  the  flotsam  and  jetsam 
of  our  civilisation,  those  who  through  vice  and 
misfortune  have  drifted  outside,  and  their  re- 
muneration seems  to  diminish  as  their  work  be- 
comes repulsive  or  unsafe.  Only  those  who  can 
get  nothing  else  to  do  will  do  it,  and  apparently 
they  must  just  take  what  they  can   get.*     This 

*  Socialists   seek  to   meet  this   diflQculty  in   a  variety   of 


THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  247 

helot  class  is,  of  course,  largely  the  product  of  the 
drink  sin. 

The  Committee  on  Physical  Deterioration  in 
1904  reported  that  if  the  drink  evil  were  removed 
three-fourths  of  the  difficulty  with  regard  to 
poverty  and  deterioration  would  disappear  with 
it.  But  that  only  makes  the  situation  the  sadder, 
and  until  labour  has  been  rehabilitated  by  the 
gospel,  and  its  place  and  value  in  human  life 
have  been  made  apparent,  nothing  really  effective 
will  be  done.  Drink-inducing  conditions  of  labour 
must  be  removed.  The  primal  curse  on  labour 
must  be  reversed  in  Christ,  Himself  a  labourer ; 
and  work  must  everywhere  be  made  the  avenue 
to  true  blessedness,  by  all  workers  everywhere 
becoming  fellow-labourers  with  God. 

It  is  from  this  standpoint  that  such  a  question  as 
an  eight-hours  day  must  be  viewed  if  all  its  issues 
are  to  be  understood.  If  the  demand  for  a  shorter 
day  means  that  the  less  a  man  works  the  better, 
it  is  a  grave  insult,  and  can  only  end  in  the 
deeper  degradation  of  the  labourer.  That  involves 
a  false  ideal,  both  morally  and  physically ;  an  ideal 
which  cannot  but  beget  the  spirit  of  the  slave, 
and  along  these  lines  lie  scamping,  drudgery,  and 
revolt.  This  is  an  aspect  of  the  case  which  must 
be  dealt  with  if  any  progress  is  to  be  made.     On 

ways  as  by  giving  higher  wages  for  such  work,  or  by 
giving  those  who  do  it  a  shorter  day.  ' '  If  six  hours  be 
regarded  as  the  normal  working  day,  it  is  quite  easy  to 
beheve  that  for  the  sake  of  the  larger  leisvu-e,  with  its 
opportunities  for  the  piu^uit  of  special  interests,  many  a 
man  would  gladly  accept  a  disagreeable  position  for  three 
hours  a  day"  (John  Spargo :  "Socialism,"  p.  219.  See 
Miss  Stoddart,  "The  New  Socialism,"  pp.  88,  89,  233). 


248  THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

the  other  hand,  if  the  demand  for  a  shorter  day 
means  that  the  worker  is  seeking  adequate  time 
and  opportunity  for  the  all-round  growth  of  his 
being,  intellectual  and  spiritual  as  well  as  physical, 
and  for  more  fully  assuming  his  responsibilities 
in  the  home,  the  Church,  and  the  State,  and  at 
the  same  time  to  be  able  to  throw  himself  more 
heartily  and  healthily  into  his  work  while  he  is 
at  it,  it  is  altogether  in  the  right  direction. 

If  everyone  does  his  share  as  he  ought,  there 
is  not  eight  hours'  work  for  all  who  ought  to  be 
working  ;  and  that  many  have  to  work  longer  only 
shows  that  others  are  not  doing  their  part.  They 
toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin,  and  others  have  to 
do  their  share.  Nor  can  it  be  too  much  insisted 
on  that  as  a  moral  and  spiritual  being  it  is  in- 
tolerable that  any  man's  life  should  be  wholly 
occupied  with  working,  eating,  and  sleeping,  as  the 
lives  of  too  many  have  been  occupied  in  the  past ; 
even  although  all  these  things  can  be  done  to  the 
glory  of  God.* 

Even  among  Christians,  however,  comparatively 
few  seem  to  realise  the  moral  and  spiritual  value 
of  work  as  the  gospel  proclaims  it,  or  to  see  that 
it  is  mainly  through  their  daily  toil  they  must 
work  out  their  salvation,  if  they  are  to  work  it 
out  at  all.  They  speak  of  Christian  work  as  if 
it  were  something  to  be  done  to  advance  the 
kingdom  of   God   in   their  spare   time   and   after 

*  In  his  "Utopia,"  Sir  Thomas  More  makes  provision  for 
a  six -hours  day,  as  some  modern  Socialists  also  do  ;  but  it 
is  of  the  very  essence  of  his  scheme  that  ' '  no  man  may  live 
idle,  but  that  every  one  may  follow  his  trade  diligently." 
His  ideal  includes  the  duty  to  work  as  well  as  the  right 
to  work. 


THE  CHRISTIAN   IDEAL  249 

their  ordinary  work  is  over.  But  Christian  work 
must  include  the  ordinary  occupations,  whatever 
they  may  be,  or  it  will  do  little  to  bring  in  the 
kingdom  which  is  righteousness,  peace,  and  joy 
in  the  Holy  Ghost. 

Conversely,  any  labour  which  for  any  reason 
whatsoever  cannot  be  made  Christian  service  should 
be  given  up  at  once.  Any  theory,  either  of  life 
or  of  the  gospel,  which  does  not  take  up  and 
spiritualise  the  daily  calling,  occupying  as  it  does 
well  nigh  the  half  of  every  busy  career,  is 
altogether  inadequate  and  unworthy. 

It  is  from  this  standpoint  that  what  is  called 
the  "ca-canuy"  policy  must  be  dealt  with  if  its 
menace  is  to  be  realised.  If  it  be  viewed  as  part 
of  the  labour  warfare  with  capital,  the  analogy 
to  it  is  not  to  be  found  in  those  w^ho  carry  on 
guerilla  tactics,  but  in  those  who  are  spies  and 
liable  to  be  shot  at  sight.  It  is  not  true  that 
everything  is  fair  in  war,  since  even  there  Christ 
has  made  His  influence  felt,  and  to  fire  on  the 
Red  Cross  is  to  be  for  ever  infamous. 

Nor  is  it  sufficient  to  claim  that  this  policy  which 
panders  to  what  is  meanest  in  men  may  have  its 
root  in  good  impulses,  and  in  the  desire  of  the 
better  workmen  to  prevent  their  superior  skill 
and  strength  being  injurious  to  those  who  are 
slower  or  w^orse  equipped. 

What  is  called  "  horsing "  is  bad,  and  the  name 
is  hardly  fair  to  the  horse  ;  for  I  understand  that 
when  a  wise  farmer  sends  out  two  carts  he  puts 
the  slower  horse  in  front,  that  it,  and  not  the 
other,  may  set  the  pace.  But  what  becomes  of 
the  moral  character  of  the  work  or  of  the  spiritual 
personality  of  the  worker  in  the  case  of  an  eye- 


250  THE   CHRISTIAN   IDEAL 

servant,  or  of  one  who  scamps  his  work  whenever 
he  can  ?  What  can  the  passing  hours  of  the  day, 
and  of  day  after  day,  mean  for  the  labourer 
who  has  neither  pride  nor  pleasure  nor  ordinary 
interest  in  his  work  which  takes  up  so  large  a 
proportion  of  his  time?  It  is  almost  inevitable 
that  such  a  w^orkman  will  find  an  outlet  for  his 
perverted  manhood  in  coarse  and  vicious  pursuits 
when  his  work  is  over.  He  will  be  like  a  dog 
off  the  chain,  just  because  he  has  done  his  work 
as  if  he  were  a  dog  and  no  man,  and  as  if  he 
wore  a  chain  and  were  a  bondman  in  all  but 
name. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  ideal  for  the  artisan 
is  that  he  should  do  his  work  in  the  spirit  of  a 
profession,  and  there  is  something  weirdly  un- 
professional, as  well  as  unmanly,  for  a  worker  to 
long  for  nothing  all  through  the  day  so  much  as 
for  the  hour  when  the  hammer  or  mallet  or  pen 
can  be  thrown  down.  Every  hour  spent  in  that 
spirit  is  lost,  and  no  such  work  can  be  done,  either 
for  the  glory  of  God  or  the  good  of  man  ;  and 
least  of  all  can  it  promote  the  honour  and  moral 
development  of  the  worker.*  The  true  worker 
puts  heart  as  well  as  brain  into  all  he  does,  and 
makes  every  day  a  day  of  divine  service,  a  con- 
tribution to  the  unfolding  of  the  divine  purpose  ; 

*  "If  you  want  knowledge,"  says  Ruskin,  "  you  must  toil 
for  it ;  if  food,  you  must  toil  for  it ;  and  if  pleasure  you  must 
toil  for  it.  But  men  do  not  acknowledge  this  law,  or  strive 
to  evade  it,  hoping  to  get  their  knowledge  and  food  and 
pleasure  for  nothing  ;  and  in  this  effort  they  either  fail  of 
getting  them,  and  remain  ignorant  and  miserable,  or  they 
obtain  them  by  making  other  men  work  for  their  benefit ; 
and  then  they  are  tyrants  and  robbers." 


THE  CHRISTIAN   IDEAL  251 

and  the  foremost  labour  problem  is  that  God 
should  be  in  everything  that  is  done  and  that 
His  honour  and  glory  should  be  promoted  by 
everything  the  labourer  does. 

When  that  ideal  has  been  attained  art,  industry, 
and  religion  will  flourish  side  by  side  as  trees  of 
the  Lord's  planting,  and  the  wilderness  shall 
rejoice  and  blossom  like  the  rose.  Corot  began 
all  his  wonderful  landscapes  with  the  sky,  and 
every  worker  should  begin  his  day's  work  with 
God.  That  would  make  him  walk  with  erect 
frame  and  manly  tread,  and  no  power  on  earth  or 
under  the  earth  would  be  able  to  deprive  him 
of  his  rights. 

The  dignity  and  importance  of  the  labourer's  place 
in  the  social  organism  must  be  fully  recognised  and 
acquiesced  in  ungrudgingly.  With  few  exceptions 
modern  students  of  the  labour  problem  seek  such 
a  synthesis  of  individualism  and  Socialism  as 
would  secure  the  best  of  both,  and  yet  avoid  their 
dangers,  when  they  are  taken  by  themselves. 
Society  is  so  truly  an  organic  whole  that  when 
one  class  in  the  community  suffers  all  must  suffer, 
and  the  ideal  is  a  genuine  reciprocity  in  which 
every  one  is  at  once  a  means  and  an  end.  No 
error  avenges  itself  so  surely  or  so  sadly  as 
acquiescence  in  the  existence  of  a  helot  class,  or 
building  up  the  structure  of  the  social  order  on 
the  presupposition  that  such  a  class  is  needed  to 
be  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water  for  the 
rest.  Reformers,  therefore,  seek  some  standpoint 
from  which  the  apparently  warring  forces  may 
be  seen  as  partial  and  incomplete  in  themselves,  and 
as  meant  to  come  together  in  a  higher  unity,  and 
each  to  the  advantage  of  the  other  and  the  whole. 


252  THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

The  labour  problem  can  never  be  solved  so 
long  as  the  labourer  is  not  looked  on  as  an 
integral  and  necessary  part  of  the  social  organism. 
To  suppose  that  he  can  be  a  means  without  also 
being  an  end  is  not  only  to  contradict  the  very 
conception  of  an  organism,  it  is  the  sheerest  folly, 
especially  in  days  when  he  has  such  power  in  the 
State.  In  the  true  reciprocity  to  which  the 
Christian  ideal  calls  us,  the  individual,  whether 
employer  or  employee,  will  neither  be  crushed 
under  the  jagged  iron  wheels  of  the  blind 
machinery  of  the  State,  nor  thought  of  as  capable 
of  attaining  his  fullest  life  apart  from  the  well- 
being  of  the  entire  community. 

Nor  is  such  an  ideal  either  fanciful  or  visionary. 
It  is  of  the  very  essence  of  the  dignity  of  man  as 
made  in  the  image  of  God  and  redeemed  by  Christ; 
and  of  his  place  in  the  greater  whole.  If  even  a 
stoic  could  say,  "I  am  a  man  and  think  nothing 
human  alien  to  me,"  how  much  more  must  the 
Christian,  who  worships  Christ,  who  became  a  man 
and  is  a  man  yet,  claim  that  there  can  be  no 
stigma  of  inferiority,  social  or  other,  imposed  on 
any  class  of  men.  Or  if  even  a  state  of  universal 
selfishness,  of  helium  omnium  contra  omnes,  could 
be  thought  of  as  leading  to  a  social  contract  which 
made  settled  government  practicable,  how  much 
more  should  the  Christian  conception  of  an 
organism  in  which  each  not  only  finds  his  place 
and  does  his  work,  but  in  which  all  are  brethren, 
lead  to  the  realisation  of  such  a  unity  in  blessed 
fact,  in  this  era  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

In  no  other  way  than  through  the  subtle,  all- 
pervading  influence  of  such  a  master-conception 
can  the   selfishness   of   employers   and  employees 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  253 

alike  be  overcome ;  and  nothing  less  than  the 
gospel,  w^ith  its  infinite  spiritual  resources  and  its 
Divine  power,  can  vanquish  this  malign  power 
enshrined  in  evil  traditions  and  maxims,  and 
sanctioned  by  antipathies  and  prejudices.  This 
kind  goeth  not  out  but  by  prayer  and  consecra- 
tion.* It  will  not  yield  to  philosophy,  which  only 
touches  the  few,  and  often  affects  even  them  in 
a  doctrinaire  and  helpless  fashion.  It  will  not 
yield  to  mere  compulsory  legislation,  even  were 
such  legislation  possible,  for  there  is  that  in  man 
which  will  not  be  coerced,  and  the  power  of  passive 
resistance  is  endless.  It  can  go  out  only  before 
Him  who  is  the  Son  of  God  as  well  as  the  Son 
of  Man.  And  His  gospel  has  set  itself  against  it 
from  the  first. 

St.  Paul  argues  expressly  against  the  absurdity 
of  any  one  saying  to  another  in  the  organism 
of  life,  "  I  have  no  need  of  thee " ;  and  it  is  one 
of  the  defects  of  some  popular  conceptions  of 
Christianity  that  they  neither  recognise  the 
significance  of  this,  nor  set  it  forth  as  the  Divine 
ideal  and  law  to  be  applied  all  round.  It  cannot 
be  too  strongly  insisted  on  that  the  gospel  does 
not  allow  that  any,  no  matter  how  poor  or  in- 
significant, may  be  treated  as  a  means  and  not 
also  as  an  end.     It  claims  a  place  for  each  in  the 


*  "It  would  be  a  dangerous  error,"  says  Dr.  Menger,  in 
"Neue  Staatslehre,"  p.  53,  "  if  we  were  to  assume  that  even  the 
most  mighty  overthrow  of  social  institutions  could  essentially 
change  the  fimdamental  impulses  of  human  natvu-e.  We 
must  reckon,"  he  says,  "  with  the  continuance  of  evil  as  well 
as  good  passions  in  the  breast  of  man  "  (quoted  in  Miss  Stod- 
dart's  "The  New  Socialism,"  p.  98). 


254  THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

living  organism,  and  thus  confers  the  true  dignity 
of  life  on  all  who  enter  into  its  fulness. 

In  a  lecture  at  Cambridge  on  Pan-Islamism, 
the  Professor  of  Arabic  in  the  University  there 
declared  some  time  ago  that  Mohammedanism 
has  been  more  loyal  to  this  fundamental  principle 
of  the  gospel  than  Christianity.  "  The  convert 
to  Islam,"  he  said,  "  no  matter  to  what  race  he 
may  belong,  is  on  the  whole  admitted  freely  and 
ungrudgingly  to  the  social  privileges  as  well  as 
obligations  of  the  community  with  which  he  has 
cast  in  his  lot."  And  it  was  asked  whether  it  can 
be  frankly  claimed  that  the  same  holds  good  of 
the  convert  to  Christianity,  in  India  for  instance. 
According  to  the  lecturer  this  could  not  be  claimed, 
and  that  as  a  result  Christianity  is  making  less 
progress  either  in  Asia  or  Africa  than  Moham- 
medanism, although  its  propaganda  is  vastly  more 
extensive  and  costly.* 

It  is  not  easy  to  say  how  much  is  in  this 
criticism,  and  probably  the  lecturer  did  not  realise 
what  it  means  as  a  handicap  that  conversion  to 
Christianity  involves  a  spiritual  change  which  is 
not  involved  in  conversion  to  Mohammedanism. 
Yet  it  must  be  admitted  that  what  is  here  de- 
nounced as  regards  work  abroad  certainly  has 
its  parallel  at  home  in  the  insufferable  air  of 
patronage  with  which  the  Church  so  often  treats 
her  working-class  adherents,  a  patronage  as  in- 
tolerable as  it  is  deadly.  There  is  only  one  lower 
depth,  that  which  the  workers  themselves  fathom 
when  they  acquiesce  in  the  inequality  and 
snobbery,   and    in   their    own   degradation ;    and, 

*  "Lectures  on  the  History  of  the  Nineteenth  Century," 
p.  309. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  255 

with  a  spirit  so  alien  to  Christian  humility,  become 
parasites  and  fawning  dependents. 

The  worst  thing  about  slavery  is  that  it  tends 
to  make  its  victims  slaves  at  heart,*  and  nothing 
in  the  work  of  the  gospel  has  been  more  remark- 
able than  the  way  in  which  it  has  made  those 
who  once  had  the  servile  spirit  free  in  every 
sense  of  the  word.  Yet  the  modern  Church,  with 
its  mission  halls  for  the  poor  and  its  club  build- 
ings for  the  rich,  has  gone  in  face  of  its  holy 
calling ;  sometimes  with  good  intentions,  but  some- 
times also  to  keep  the  lower  orders  in  their  place ; 
and  it  is  matter  for  congratulation,  and  not  for 
regret,  that  so  few  of  the  lower  orders  acquiesce 
in  the  arrangement. 

As  for  the  arrangement  itself,  the  spirit  of  it 
comes  out  in  all  sorts  of  ways,  and  is  a  remini- 
scence of  the  olden  time  when  the  labourer 
himself  hardly  resented  being  treated  as  an 
inferior.  But  it  is  bitterly  resented  now,  even 
by  those  who  have  never  analysed  their  bitterness 
and  hardly  realise  what  it  means. 

I  have  heard  good  people  express  gratification 
that  a  working  man  had  become  a  Sabbath  school 
teacher,  or  had  led  in  prayer  at  their  prayer 
meeting,  as  if  that  were  something  wonderful. 
But  why  should  not  a  working  man,  a  Christian 
joiner  or  mason  or  carter,  be  as  fit  to  do  such 
things  in  the  Church  of  the  Carpenter  of  Nazareth 
as  a  Christian  merchant  or  lawyer  or  clerk  ?  Is 
it  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  labourer,  even  when 
worthy  of  all  respect,  does  not  get  his  place 
without  a  conflict  in   the  social   organism,  when 

*  As  Homer  puts  it :  "  Zeus  takes  away  half  the  manhood 
of  a  man  when  slavery  overtakes  hun." 


256  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

he  only  gets  it  in  this  fashion  in  the  Church,  where 
of  all  places  on  earth,  more  even  than  in  the  law 
courts,  all  men  ought  to  be  equal  ? 

There  is  nothing  which  is  more  fruitful  in  class 
hatred  and  civil  war  than  the  caste  which  still 
prevails  in  the  Christian  Church.  Nothing  has 
done  more  to  promote  the  growth  of  the  anti- 
Christian  spirit  which  prevails  among  many 
sections  of  the  working  classes.  Every  new  set  of 
statistics  of  church  attendance  shows  an  ever- 
smaller  proportion  of  the  community  at  public 
worship,  and  with  the  exception  of  the  very  rich 
the  working  classes  seem  more  completely 
estranged  than  any  other  section. 

In  some  towns  it  is  comparatively  rare  for 
genuine  working  men  to  be  connected  with  a 
church.  Even  what  are  paraded  as  working-class 
congregations  are  composed  for  the  most  part,  so 
far  as  the  men  are  concerned,  and  they  are  always 
the  minority,  of  clerks,  foremen,  and  small  shop- 
keepers, and  seldom  have  any  considerable  number 
of  artisans. 

And  even  if  all  who  are  claimed  were  genuine, 
must  it  not  be  asked  what  are  they  among  so 
many  ?  With  P.S. A.'s  and  Brotherhoods,  and  much 
else  thrown  in,  no  more  than  a  fraction  of  the  bond- 
fide  tradesmen  in  our  great  public  works  make  any 
profession  of  religion ;  and  I  have  known  public 
works  where  practically  not  one  man  made  pro- 
fession of  being  a  Christian,  and  where  a  converted 
man,  if  such  was  to  be  found,  was  far  more  likely 
to  be  among  the  irregulars  than  in  the  Church. 
Nor  is  it  of  any  use  to  ignore  the  fact  that  the 
forces  which  make  for  unbelief  where  working 
m^en  congregate,  are  all  reinforced  by  the  convic- 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  257 

tion  that  Christianity,  as  they  know  it,  is  not  on 
their  side  frankly,  or  without  an  air  of  condescen- 
sion and  patronage.* 

It  is  equally  impossible  to  deny,  as  friends  of 
the  Church  would  like  to  be  able  to  deny  it,  that 
this  conviction  is  not  wholly  without  foundation. 
Many  of  the  charges  made  are  quite  groundless, 
and  some  of  the  best  Christians  of  our  time  are 
working  men,  just  as  many  leaders  in  the  Churches 
are  the  best  friends  labour  has  ;  yet  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  the  spirit  of  caste  and  snobbery  is  very 
prevalent  in  the  places  where  it  should  be 
unknown,  and  that  miserable  class  distinctions 
which  had  their  origin  when  the  labourer  w^as  a 
serf  are  still  recognised  as  if  they  were  of  Divine 
institution. 

As  a  working  man  who  has  been  among  working 
men  all  my  days,  and  the  son  of  a  Christian 
artisan,  I  cannot  pretend  to  be  surprised  that  the 
labourers  of  our  land  cannot  see  that  the  Church 
of  the  Living  God  has  been  their  friend  and  cham- 
pion, as  it  should  have  been.  It  is  sheer  futility 
to  argue  that  the  Church  should  know  nothing 
of  class  distinctions,  for  that  is  just  what  she  has 
persistently  known,  and  never  more  so  than   in 

*  Some  would  distinguish  here  between  Christianity  and 
the  Church,  and  among  some  Socialists  there  seems  to  be  a 
moving  away  from  the  old  position  that  Christianity  is  the 
enemy  of  the  popular  demands  and  the  partisan  of  the 
capitalists,  to  the  teaching  "that  there  is  nothing  in  Chris- 
tianity so  far  as  we  " — Justice,  the  organ  of  the  Social  Demo- 
cratic Federation — "can  discover  that  militates  against  its 
disciples  advocating  social  democracy.  On  the  contrary,  it 
appears  to  inculcate  the  principle  of  universal  equality  and 
brotherhood." 

Christianity  and  Labour.  18 


258  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

these  democratic  days.  Not  only  so,  but  the 
applause  which  some  have  for  the  Carpenter  of 
Nazareth,  when  they  speak  of  Christ  and  early 
experiments  in  Christian  communism,  never  meant 
less  than  it  does  now.  Indeed,  it  has  often  been 
most  offensive  when  an  air  of  patronage  entered 
into  such  references  to  our  Lord. 

It  is  often  forgotten  by  both  sides  in  the  modem 
conflict  with  unbelief  that  revolutionary  as  Jesus 
was,  the  primary  revolution  for  which  He  sought 
was  spiritual,  and  that  He  always  insisted  "  ye  must 
be  born  again."  But  the  unwelcome  fact  remains 
that  the  great  mass  of  the  labourers,  as  they  are 
now  organised,  are  of  opinion  that  the  Church  in 
all  its  branches  is  largely  on  the  side  of  the 
capitalists ;  that  among  Conformists  and  Noncon- 
formists alike  money  has  far  too  much  power ; 
that  ministers  dine  with  the  rich  and  preach  at 
the  poor,  instead  of  doing  the  exact  opposite,  as 
they  ought ;  and  that  historically  viewed  Chris- 
tianity has  helped  to  stereotype  social  conditions 
in  which  they  get  far  more  than  their  share  of  the 
burdens,  and  far  fewer  of  the  rewards  than  their 
share.  And  those  who  know  most  about  the  facts 
will  find  it  most  difficult  to  repel  this  attack. 

It  is  true  that  the  best  friends  of  labour  have 
been  inside  the  Church,  and  that  they  have  helped 
the  labourer  most  by  letting  the  gospel  tell  all 
round ;  but  it  is  also  true  that  they  had  often  to 
suffer  for  their  insight  and  to  face  the  opposition 
of  their  obscurantist  fellow  Churchmen.  Even  the 
progress  which  has  been  made  has  been  due  to  the 
Christianity  within  the  Churches  rather  than  to 
the  Churches  themselves,  at  least  officially  viewed. 

Even  yet  caste  is  nowhere  more  powerful  than 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  259 

in  the  Church  of  Christ.  Nowhere  is  money 
mightier,  and  it  seldom  happens  that  inconvenient 
questions  are  asked  as  to  how  the  money  was 
made.  It  is  enough  that  it  be  there,  to  ensure 
respect  and  influence.  Nor  is  there  anywhere 
more  of  that  patronage  of  the  poor  which  is  quite 
as  hateful  as  truckling  to  the  rich.  As  for  the 
results  of  all  this,  there  is  overwhelming  testimony 
to  the  alienation  of  the  working  classes  from  the 
Churches. 

Those  who  deny  that  there  is  such  an  estrange- 
ment are  either  ignorant,  or  are  in  flamboyant 
mood  at  a  church  bazaar  or  some  similar  function  ; 
and  it  is  significant  that  some  of  the  most  popular 
of  the  new  generation  of  labour  leaders  are  un- 
believers, whereas  the  most  outstanding  of  the 
older  leaders  were  Christian  men  who  had  been 
trained  for  leadership  in  Church  work. 

Not  that  it  is  the  Church  alone  which  seeks  to 
patronise  the  working  man,  or  takes  a  kindly 
interest  in  him  now  that  he  has  the  vote.  All  the 
party  caucuses  seek  his  friendship,  and  the  party 
Codlins  and  Shorts  vie  with  each  other  in  their 
attentions  to  him,  especially  at  election  times. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  how  it  is  that  there  is 
keen  suspicion  in  labour  circles  about  the  over- 
tures which  come  to  them  from  the  party 
managers.  While  Whig  and  Tory  dispute  as  to 
which  has  done  most  for  labour,  or  as  to  which  can 
promise  most,  the  labourer  himself  must  often  be 
in  doubt  as  to  whether  either  of  them  has  realised 
that  even  apart  from  his  vote  he  is  an  all- 
important  part  of  the  nation  ;  that  he  is  too  strong 
to  be  patronised ;  and  that  he  needs  no  party  whip 
to  teach  him  how  to  act. 


260  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

The  recognition  of  these  facts — and  not  as  hard, 
but  welcome  facts — is  not  only  an  integral  part  of 
the  Christian  ideal,  it  is  the  starting  point  for 
all  the  progress  yet  to  be  made,  and  Christian  men 
and  women  who  love  their  Lord  should  let  the 
truth,  as  it  is  in  Christ,  tell  all  round  in  public  and 
private  that  the  atmosphere  in  which  our  politics 
live  and  move  and  have  their  being  may  be 
Christian,  pure  and  holy,  sympathetic  and  just, 
gracious  and  strong. 

The  labourer  ought  to  receive  a  living  wage  as 
the  fruit  of  his  labour.  This  demand  is  a  genuine 
Christian  contribution  to  this  discussion,  and  if  it 
could  only  be  looked  at  apart  from  the  influence  of 
inveterate  prejudices  and  mere  theories  the  justice 
of  it  and  the  necessity  for  it  would  be  apparent 
to  all  who  are  walking  in  the  light.  It  has  been 
assailed  as  impracticable  and  absurd,  both  by  the 
orthodox  and  heterodox  economists,  but  is  an 
absolute  essential  of  any  industrial  state  even 
approximately  ideal,  that  the  labourer  should  be 
able  to  live  a  seemly  life  on  the  fruit  of  his  toil. 
Not  only  so,  but  the  claim  is  one  of  those  fruitful 
conceptions  which  persist  in  spite  of  opposition 
and  ridicule,  and  even  apparent  refutation  when 
once  they  have  found  expression,  and  which  always 
win  in  the  end.  Even  after  they  have  been  thrice 
slain  and  oftener,  they  are  alive  still,  and  still 
move. 

It  is  no  real  objection  to  say  that  it  is  inade- 
quate, and  that  no  one  can  tell  exactly  what  a 
living  wage  is.  Such  a  principle,  of  necessity, 
must  be  indefinite,  and  what  a  living  wage  is 
depends  very  much  on  local  circumstances.  It  is 
not  quite  the  same  for   town   and  country,  and 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  261 

may  vary  somewhat  with  different  trades.  The 
disconcerting  fact  must  even  be  faced  that  it  may 
differ  for  different  persons. 

But  that  is  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  it  is  a 
principle  and  not  a  rule ;  and  if  it  were  once 
honestly  recognised  it  would  be  easy  enough  any- 
where to  discover  what  a  living  wage  is.  A  jury  of 
matrons  could  settle  it  to  a  shilling  a  week  in  any 
district ;  for  it  means  a  wage  which  would  render 
not  only  squalor  and  misery  impossible  alongside 
of  integrity  and  sobriety,  but  which  would  also 
render  undue  pressure  and  sordid  economy  un- 
necessary ;  and  impossible  as  it  may  seem  to  the 
doctrinaire  to  draw  such  a  line,  the  workmen 
themselves  could  soon  draw  it.  It  may  be  added 
that  even  the  Independent  Labour  Party  have 
never  demanded  more  than  their  fair  share. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  principle  of  a  living 
wage  is  already  in  operation.*  Many  employers, 
even  among  those  who  deride  the  doctrine  as 
absurd,  are  guided  by  it  in  the  wages  they  pay. 
Where  they  might  get  hungry  men  to  work  for 
fifteen  shillings  a  week,  they  pay  twenty,  because 
they  have  not  the  heart  to  offer  them  less  than 
what  they  think  can  keep  life  in  ;  and  in  many 
places  where  there  is  no  explicit  standard  wage 
an  implicit  living  wage  has  tacitly  been   evolved. 

The  truth  is  that  most  theorists  are  better  than 
their  theories  in  political  economy.     The  heart  is 

*  "  Perhaps  one  of  the  most  curious  facts  in  the  history  of 
human  error  is  the  denial  by  the  common  political  economist 
of  the  possibility  of  thus  regulating  wages,  while  for  all  the 
important  and  much  of  the  unimportant  labour  on  the  earth, 
wages  are  already  so  regulated  "  (Ruskin  :  "  Unto  This  Last," 
Essay  I.). 


262  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

often  obstinately  illogical  and  even  irrational,  and 
introduces  many  a  compensation.  When  em- 
ployers and  employed  come  together  they  often 
find  that  prejudices  and  statistics  go  by  the  board 
in  their  actual  contact,  and  that  they  are  not  as  far 
apart  as  they  thought.  Economically  they  cannot 
be  far  apart,  since  in  the  end  of  the  day  they 
stand  or  fall  together,  while  morally  and  sympa- 
thetically they  are  of  the  same  flesh  and  blood, 
essentially  alike  in  yearnings  and  desires. 

The  same  thing  comes  out  in  connection  with 
women's  work,  and  especially  in  domestic  service. 
In  such  work  supply  and  demand  only  fix  the 
wages  in  a  very  general  way  ;  if  there  are  those 
who  take  advantage  of  weakness  and  ignorance 
to  underpay  their  servants,  there  are  far  more 
who  have  little  regard  to  buying  in  the  cheapest 
market.  In  every  district  there  is  a  standard 
which  is  recognised  even  when  there  are  many 
out  of  work  ;  and  casual  women  workers  are  often 
paid  half  a  crown  a  day,  with  extras,  when  others 
would  do  the  work  for  eighteenpence.  Where 
there  are  large  numbers  of  workers,  as  in  a  factory, 
it  is  of  course  different,  sometimes  sadly  so  ;  but 
a  principle  which  works  well  anywhere  can  hardly 
be  ruled  out  of  court,  without  discussion,  as  either 
impossible  or  absurd. 

It  is  through  such  an  issue  as  this  that  the 
gospel  not  only  helps  the  cause  of  labour,  but 
rehabilitates  itself  with  the  labourer.  It  insists 
that  "  the  labourer  is  worthy  of  his  hire,"  and 
that  by  means  of  his  hire  he  must  be  able  to 
develop  a  clean  and  healthy  humanity,  as  made 
in  God's  image  and  redeemed  by  the  blood  of 
Christ. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  263 

Those  who  seek  to  help  in  this  department  do 
not  require  to  be  experts  in  the  "  wages  fund,"  or 
other  theories  and  formulas  still  accepted  or  now 
discredited.  Nor  do  they  require  to  identify  them- 
selves with  any  attack  on  the  ordinary  political 
economy,  whether  from  the  Socialist  standpoint, 
or  from  that  of  writers  like  Carlyle  or  Ruskin. 

But  they  must  be  able  to  insist  that  moral  con- 
siderations should  be  kept  in  the  very  forefront, 
that  the  whole  situation  be  looked  at  in  the  light 
of  the  Cross,  and  that  the  entire  discussion  be 
carried  through  on  the  spiritual  platform,  which 
is  the  highest  of  all.  They  must  insist  increas- 
ingly that  it  must  never  be  forgotten  that  it  is 
not  theories  alone  which  are  involved,  but  men 
and  women  and  children ;  not  workshops  alone, 
nor  statistics  nor  Acts  of  Parliament,  but  the  home 
and  the  Church,  the  nation  and  humanity;  and 
that  however  it  is  done,  men  must  be  able  to 
make  their  lives  worth  living,  and  that  the  means 
whereby  a  decent  moral  life,  a  life  in  harmony 
with  their  origin  as  spiritual,  must  be  brought 
within  reach  of  all  who  are  willing  to  work.  The 
heart  of  the  nation  must  be  taught  to  see  that  it 
is  revolting  to  imagine  that  there  can  be  pros- 
perity of  any  sort  unless  this  very  moderate 
demand  be  freely  met  and  fully  satisfied. 

This  doctrine  of  a  living  wage  is  essentially 
Christian,  and  is  the  outcome  of  the  moral 
necessity  that  men  and  women — who  were  made 
for  God,  and  made  in  the  image  of  God,  so  that 
they  can  only  find  their  true  end,  and  do  their 
true  work,  in  Him — should  be  enabled  to  live  as 
spiritual  beings,  and  not  as  dumb,  driven  cattle,  of 
use  only  for  the  enrichment  of  others.     Exceptions 


264  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

apart,  this  demand  has  not  been  inspired  by  any 
spirit  of  selfishness,  but  by  the  growing  yearning 
of  the  labourer  that  he  and  his  family  should  have 
similar  opportunities  for  developing  their  true 
life  in  the  beauty  of  affection  and  intelligence  as 
are  enjoyed  by  those  whose  means  are  ampler 
and  whose  leisure  is  greater. 

Only  those  in  touch  with  the  labouring  classes 
can  appreciate  how  much  the  modern  demand  for 
holidays,  for  example,  is  bound  up  with  an 
increasing  ability  to  enjoy  the  beauties  of  nature 
and  develop  an  all-round  life,  a  life  intellectual 
and  spiritual,  as  well  as  physical.  Everything  and 
everybody  would  benefit  by  the  satisfaction  of 
such  yearnings  and  by  their  development,  and 
if  this  involves  the  payment  of  higher  wages 
the  increase  will  be  far  more  than  made  up  in 
better  work  and  heartier  service.  Whatever 
makes  the  labourer  a  better  man  increases  the 
value  of  his  labour ;  and  experience  has  shown  that 
the  best-paid  workmen  are  usually  most  truly 
worth  their  wages. 

Some  wise  employers  hold  on  purely  economical 
grounds  that  those  who  are  not  worth  good  wages 
are  not  worth  anything.  Nor  is  it  any  objection 
to  this  doctrine  that  it  cannot  be  applied  by  rule- 
of-thumb  or  like  the  multiplication  table.  It 
involves  consideration,  insight,  and  sympathy. 

A  new  atmosphere  is  needed,  and  if  in  the 
conflict  between  this  great  moral  principle  of  life 
and  work  and  the  ordinary  parrot-cry  of  the 
most  dismal  theory  of  the  dismal  science,  the 
Christianity  of  our  time  has  even  seriously  to 
consider  what  her  choice  should  be,  it  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at,    it   is  hardly  to  be   deplored,   that 


THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  265 

working  men  do  not  crowd  into  her  courts.  If 
she  throws  away  this  new  opportunity  which 
has  come  to  her,  as  Luther  threw  away  the  oppor- 
tunity which  came  to  him,  and  refuses  to  cast  her 
influence  on  the  Christian  side  in  the  unceasing 
struggle,  she  will  doom  herself  to  another  exile, 
which  will  be  none  the  less  sad  that  it  will  be 
abundantly  deserved.  But  there  are  many  indi- 
cations that  this  time  she  will  choose  the  better 
part  and  let  her  light  shine  on  the  road  along 
which  the  labourer  is  journeying.  If  she  does, 
multitudes  will  see  the  Saviour  in  that  light  and 
follow  on  to  know  the  Lord. 

That  many  workers  are  not  yet  receiving  a 
living  wage  is  unfortunately  not  open  to  dispute. 
The  proofs  of  this  are  overwhelming.  Investiga- 
tion has  shown  that  under  favourable  circum- 
stances and  present  prices  a  father  and  mother 
and  two  children  require  18s.  lOd.  per  week  to 
sustain  them  in  physical  efficiency ;  while  26s.  is 
the  minimum  required  where  there  are  four 
children.  Even  that  provision  is  not  only  less 
liberal  than  the  workhouse  allowance,  it  allows 
nothing  for  tobacco  or  drink,  for  holidays  or 
recreation,  and  includes  nothing  for  doctor  or 
church.  It  does  not  even  provide  for  a  newspaper 
to  enable  the  citizen  to  rule  the  empire  with 
intelligence  and  knowledge.  Yet  it  is  notorious 
that  the  wages  of  multitudes  are  below  what  is 
thus  considered  subsistence-level. 

Taking  irregularity  of  employment,  sickness,  and 
other  interruptions  into  account,  it  is  believed  that 
more  than  a  fourth  of  all  the  labourers  in  our  towns 
get  less  than  these  sums  as  remuneration  for  their 
labour ;  and  it  has  to  be  remembered  that  nearly 


266  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

four-fifths  of  our  population  now  live  in  towns. 
In  Glasgow  the  average  wage  of  unskilled  labourers 
when  employed  is  18s.  a  week ;  and  in  the  same 
city  the  average  wage  of  railway  carters  is  23s. 
for  a  week  of  eighty  hours.  Carters  with  private 
contractors  get  24s.,  the  corresponding  figures  for 
all  Scotland  being  22s.  and  20s.  According  to  Mr. 
Seebohm  Rowntree,  in  the  city  of  York,  in  a  year  of 
great  prosperity,  45  per  cent,  of  the  working  classes 
earned  less  than  was  sufficient  to  maintain  them 
in  physical  efficiency.* 

Everybody  knows  now  about  the  thirteen 
millions  in  our  land  who  are  always  within 
measurable  distance  of  starvation,  but  compara- 
tively few  realise  that  that  means  that  the  normal 
condition  of  the  average  working  man  is  that  the 
margin  between  him  and  destitution  is  so  small 
that  a  month  of  bad  trade  or  sickness  or  un- 
expected strain  of  any  sort  brings  him  and  those 
dependent  on  him  face  to  face  with  hunger.  And, 
of  course,  this  is  all  complicated  and  the  misery  of 
it  increased  by  the  drunkenness  and  improvidence 
of  those  who  can  least  aiford  the  waste,  and  worse 
than  waste,  which  is  involved. 

One  result  is  a  generation  of  physical  and  moral 
weaklings  who  are  a  grave  and  perpetual  menace 
to  the  well-being  of  the  nation.  Not  that  it  is  quite 
fair  to  speak  as  if  the  wages  problem  were  mainly 
a  question  of  temperance,  good  management,  and 

*  For  all  the  United  Kingdom,  "twenty  shillings  and  six- 
pence was  estimated  as  the  average  weekly  wages  of  the 
manual  workers  in  1903,  and  in  the  worker's  wage-earning 
year  from  six  to  ten  weeks  at  least  are  lost  through  sickness, 
bad  weather,  or  accident"  (Miss  Stoddart,  "The  New 
Socialism,"  p.  35). 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  267 

thrift.  Drunkenness  is  an  effect  as  well  as  a  cause 
of  misery ;  and  while  many  are  making  what  is 
bad  tenfold  worse  by  their  vice,  and  only  too  many 
have  no  notion  of  what  thrift  means,  there  are 
some  for  whom  the  easiest  escape  from  their  sordid 
existence,  with  all  its  cares  and  hopelessness,  is 
that  which  indulgence  in  strong  drink  offers  them. 
"  Kings  may  be  blest,  but  Tam  was  glorious,  O'er  a' 
the  ills  of  life  victorious." 

In  many  cases,  too,  no  amount  of  thrift  would 
make  the  wage  earned  sujfficient  to  maintain  a 
bright  and  comfortable  home.  Nor  is  it  an 
adequate  reply  to  say  that  some  manage,  and 
manage  with  credit  too,  to  live  on  less  than  what 
has  been  declared  to  be  the  irreducible  minimum. 
That  means  such  a  strain  that  when  weakness  and 
disease  come  there  is  no  power  of  resistance  left. 
It  is  indeed  heartbreaking  that  there  are  those 
who  pander  to  vice  in  the  name  of  social  reform, 
and  decry  thrift  in  the  name  of  what  they  call  the 
iron  law  of  wages. 

But  it  is  also  sad  when  temperance  reformers 
speak  as  if  nothing  were  required  for  bringing  in 
the  millennium  but  local  veto.  Character  is  more 
than  circumstances,  but  character  and  circum- 
stances are  closely  allied.  Prolonged  hours  of 
labour  and  insuflBcient  food,  for  example,  seem  to 
bring  the  bodies  and  minds  of  some  toilers  into  a 
condition  which  creates  a  craving  for  the  false 
excitement  of  alcohol.  It  has  been  stated  that  in 
steamships  the  firemen  are  more  given  to  drunken- 
ness than  the  seamen,  and  that  that  is  due  to  the 
exhausting  nature  of  a  stoker's  work.  It  has,  of 
course,  to  be  gratefully  acknowledged  that  few 
temperance     reformers    confine    their    efforts    to 


268  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

securing  total  abstinence  pledges ;  and  it  has  con- 
stantly to  be  affirmed  that  every  other  social 
problem  would  be  brought  nearer  solution  were 
the  drink  problem  solved.  No  power  on  earth 
could  keep  a  sober  nation  in  bonds. 

But  the  social  problems  stand  or  fall  together, 
and  it  is  a  Christian  duty  to  make  drink-inducing 
conditions  as  rare  as  possible,  and  to  drive  away 
the  awful  monotony  which  lies  like  a  nightmare 
on  so  many,  and  makes  them  crave  the  unhealthy 
excitement  and  unlawful  stimulus  of  strong  drink. 
It  can  never  be  the  part  of  a  reformer  to  offer 
apologies  for  drunkenness,  so  filthy  and  degrading, 
but  it  is  the  business  of  every  reformer  to  remove 
temptation  wherever  he  can. 

Personally,  I  am  all  for  temperance  reform,  for 
safeguarding  the  tempted  and  the  young,  for 
rescuing  the  fallen,  for  prohibition  indeed ;  but  the 
more  I  know  about  the  situation  in  our  land  the 
more  do  I  see  that  that  is  far  from  being  the  whole 
problem.  The  means  of  a  decent  living  must  be 
brought  within  reach  of  every  worker,  and  even  if 
it  is  the  case  that  that  has  been  approximately 
done  for  such  tradesmen  as  are  regularly  employed, 
the  Church  of  Christ  cannot  overlook  the  host  of 
casual  and  unskilled  labourers  whose  wages  are 
miserable  at  the  best. 

The  problem  of  the  unskilled  who  cannot  lay 
anything  aside  for  a  rainy  day  is  very  urgent,  and 
cannot  but  appeal  to  every  Christian  heart. 
Nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  spiritual  yearn- 
ings are  crushed  by  physical  destitution,  and  slight 
as  the  hold  of  the  Church  is  on  any  class  of 
workers,  it  is  slightest  of  all  on  the  class  below 
the  poverty  line.     So  far  as  they  are  concerned, 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  269 

it  is  almost  as  if  there  were  no  gospel  and  no 
Church. 

Then  there  are  those  who  are  often  unemployed 
even  when  trade  is  good.  Some  of  them  are 
loafers  who  sometimes  fare  better  without  working 
than  others  fare  who  work  hard  ;  and  for  all  such 
the  duty  to  work  must  come  with  the  right  to 
work;  but  many  of  them  are  only  unfortunate  and 
feckless,  and  whatever  economists  may  do  Christ's 
Church  must  feed  the  hungry,  bring  hope  to  the 
despairing,  and  inspire  manhood  in  the  degraded. 
If  any  trade  is  unable  to  afford  a  living  wage  to 
the  worker  as  well  as  a  profit  to  the  employer  the 
sooner  it  disappears  the  better.  Land  is  allowed 
to  go  out  of  cultivation  when  it  does  not  pay  to 
grow  grain  on  it,  and  a  trade  might  well  cease 
to  be  carried  on  when  it  cannot  pay  both  masters 
and  men.* 

But  it  is  seldom  that  such  a  course  would  be 
required.  The  trades  in  which  the  hugest  for- 
tunes are  made  are  often  those  where  the  lowest 
wages  are  paid ;  and  employers  who  live  in 
indulgence  and  leave  millions  when  they  die  are 
sometimes  those  who  assert  most  strenuously 
that  it  would  ruin  them  to  pay  a  farthing  more 
an  hour.  Yet  as  experience  has  shown,  it  is 
more  remunerative  to  pay  wages  which  enable 
the  workers  to  live  in  comfort  and  self-respect 
than  to  starve  them  and  beget  the  spirit  of  the 
serf. 

Nothing  is  more  expensive  in  the  end  than  a 
degraded    class,    and  if    the    Church   could    only 

*  As  was  seen  above,  this  principle  was  recognised  by  both 
sides  of  the  House  when  The  Trade  Boards  Act  was  passing 
through  Parliament. 


270  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

get  this  part  of  the  Christian  ideal  realised  she 
would  not  merely  bring  blessing  to  the  labourer 
and  the  land,  she  would  do  much  to  lead  the 
common  people  to  hear  the  word  of  the  Lord 
gladly,  and  thereby  to  hasten  the  coming  of  the 
Kingdom   of   God. 

There  ought  to  he  some  adequate  provision  for  the 
labourer  lohen  he  is  no  longer  fit  for  work.  Old  Age 
Pensions  are  now  happily  within  the  sphere  of 
practical  politics  in  the  mother  country  as  well 
as  in  the  colonies  which  showed  us  the  way ; 
and  only  those  who  live  among  the  aged  poor 
can  realise  what  a  difference  they  have  made. 
January,  1909,  was  the  beginning  of  a  new  era  for 
many,  and  it  was  pathetic  to  meet  those  who  were 
unable  to  believe  in  their  good  fortune  till  they 
had  handled  the  money.  It  seemed  too  good 
news  to  be  true.  It  is  even  more  pathetic  to 
meet  those  who  are  eagerly  counting  the  weeks 
and  months  which  lie  between  them  and  the 
haven.  Never  before  were  so  many  willing  to 
be  accounted  old.  Rightly  understood  such  pen- 
sions are  simply  an  extension,  just  and  neces- 
sary, of  the  principle  of  the  living  wage,  and  the 
more  that  is  made  operative  the  easier  will  it 
be  to  provide  pensions  for  all  who  require  them. 
It  has  been  made  clear  that  it  is  altogether  a 
question  of  money,  and  the  nation  which  spent  two 
hundred  and  fifty  millions  on  the  Boer  war,  and 
insists  that  whatever  is  needed  to  make  its  Navy 
invincible  must  be  found,  can  easily  provide  all  that 
is  needed  to  consummate  this  great  reform  which 
has  already  dispelled  the  shadows  from  so  many 
who  are  going  down  the  hillside  of  life. 
Not    long   ago    indignation    was   expressed    by 


THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  271 

Lord  Roberts  and  others  at  the  thought  of  any 
of  our  Crimean  veterans  eating  the  pauper's 
bread,  and  there  ought  to  be  indignation  as  hot 
at  the  thought  that  any  who  have  served  their 
country  in  the  industrial  strife  should  be  so 
degraded.  Peace  has  her  victories  no  less  than 
war,  and  the  veterans  of  peace  should  not  be 
worse  off  than  the  veterans  of  war.  If  only  the 
matter  is  put  on  a  right  footing,  the  money  will 
be  forthcoming,  and  nothing  is  more  shameful 
than  the  sinful  waste  which  still  prevails  side 
by  side  with  desolating  poverty;  or  the  crushing 
want  which  is  allowed  to  persist  beside  enormous 
and  ever-increasing  wealth. 

As  for  the  Church  allowing  her  veterans,  those 
for  whom  Christ  died,  and  who  have  been  at  the 
same  Table  of  the  Lord  with  their  richer  brethren, 
to  come  under  the  taint  of  pauperism,  or  to  die  in 
poor-houses  where  even  the  tie  that  binds  husband 
and  wife  is  ignored,  the  thought  is  abhorrent, 
and  that  it  does  not  send  a  thrill  of  indignation 
all  over  the  Church  shows  how  far  we  have 
drifted  from   the  Christian  ideal. 

The  Presbyterian  Church  of  Ireland,  a  Church 
which  is  small,  but  original  and  brave,  and  which 
has  long  carried  out  a  splendid  programme  for 
its  orphans,  has  now  tackled  the  question  of  its 
aged  poor,  and  is  meeting  with  encouraging  suc- 
cess. It  began  this  work  before  the  State,  and 
the  introduction  of  Old  Age  Pensions  has  not 
hampered  but  helped  it  in  its  noble  efforts.  All 
honour  to  the  brave  Irishmen  who  have  led  the 
way,  for  this  is  even  more  a  question  for  the 
Church  than  for  the  State. 

O,  the  shame  of  it,  that  there  should  be  an  out- 


272  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

cry  all  over  the  land  at  the  discovery  that  some 
Balaclava  or  Inkermann  hero  has  died  in  poverty 
and  neglect,  and  that  there  should  be  no  such 
outcry  all  over  the  Church  at  the  discovery  that 
one  of  Christ's  little  ones  has  gone  down  to  the 
grave  in  hunger  and  nakedness  or  eating  the 
pauper's  bread  ! 

It  has  been  made  clear,  however,  that  private 
enterprise,  and  even  the  enterprise  of  the  Church, 
cannot  meet  all  the  demands  of  the  situations, 
much  as  kindly  charity  can  do  and  is  doing.  Only 
those  in  the  inner  circles  of  Church  work  have 
any  conception  of  what  the  Church  is  doing 
directly  and  indirectly  for  the  poor ;  *  but  the 
State  as  ennobled  by  Christ  has  its  sphere,  too. 
It  is  no  longer  thought  of  as  a  magnified  police- 
man, but  as  an  ordinance  of  God,  and  this  is 
the  national  recognition  of  religion  which  mean- 
while is  most  required. 

The  great  Friendly  Societies,  as  well  as  Trade 
Unions  on  their  provident  side,  have  also  done 
much  to  mitigate  distress  and  provide  for  those 
who  are  no  longer  able  to  work,  and  they  will  be 
encouraged  to  do  more  now  that  there  are  these 
pensions  to  serve  as  a  nest-egg  for  the  thrifty. 
But  neither  are  they  sufficient  for  all  the  respon- 
sibilities involved. 

*  At  the  close  of  the  hard  winter  of  1909-10,  the  Glasgow 
Presbytery  of  the  United  Free  Church  of  Scotland  could 
say  that  not  one  family  within  the  pale  of  that  Church 
had  been  allowed  to  go  without  the  necessaries  of  life, 
while  many  .had  been  enabled  to  pay  their  rent  and  get 
warm  clothing  for  their  children  and  themselves.  The 
City  Relief  Fund  was  administered  at  a  cost  of  18  per 
cent.    The   Church   Relief    Fund  at  a  cost  of    1   per   cent. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  273 

Even  contributory  schemes  for  which  so  much 
might  otherwise  be  said  come  short  in  this 
respect  that  the  very  neediest  are  just  those  who 
could  make  no  provision,  and  even  the  thriftless 
must  not  be  left  to  perish.  They  ought  rather 
to  be  provided  with  this  new  incentive  to  thrift ; 
for  the  sheer  impossibility  of  providing  anything 
that  could  avail  from  the  pittance  most  wage- 
earners  receive  has  been  the  deadliest  enemy  of 
thrift.  What  was  the  use  of  scraping  together 
the  few  pence  which  were  all  that  could  be 
saved  when  they  could  not  fail  to  be  ridiculously 
inadequate  in  the  end,  and  if  it  would  be  all  the 
same  in  the  end?  Some  of  those  who  insist 
most  on  the  need  for  compulsory  contributions 
can  have  no  idea  of  how  many  there  are  who 
never  have  enough  for  the  present  with  its 
necessities,  and  whose  rainy-day  is  never  far  off. 

Take,  for  example,  these  figures,  in  addition  to 
those  already  given.  A  sanitary  inspector  in  the 
East  of  London  reports  the  following  wages  as 
paid  in  that  district:  For  making  boys'  knickers 
lOd.  a  dozen  is  paid ;  for  ladies'  blouses  6d.  a  dozen ; 
and  for  shirts  which  sell  in  the  West  End  at 
3s.  lid.  each,  Is.  7d.  a  dozen.  There  is  not  much 
margin  there  for  contributions  to  any  fund !  He 
tells  of  a  woman  who  contracted  to  make  four 
hundred  pairs  of  trousers  at  8Jd.  a  pair  and  then 
sub-let  the  work  at  5^d.  The  General  Assembly  of 
the  United  Free  Church  of  Scotland,  at  one  of  its 
recent  meetings,  was  informed  by  one  of  its  com- 
mittees that  there  are  large  numbers  throughout 
the  country  who  are  unable  to  earn  an  adequate 
subsistence,  although  they  are  skilful  workers  and 
work  twelve  and  even   sixteen  hours  a  day.     A 

Christianity  and  Labour.  19 


274  THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

report  on  the  earnings  of  four  hundred  and  three 
women  workers  in  Glasgow  in  sixteen  different 
departments  of  employment  showed  their  average 
earnings  for  six  and  a  half  hours  a  day  to  be 
3'08d.  an  hour,  or  Is.  7Jd.  a  day.  Sweated  boot 
and  shoe  work  yields  an  average  of  from  5s.  to 
9s.  a  week,  or  from  |d.  to  If d.  an  hour ;  while  in 
the  "  hook-and-eye  carding "  the  average  weekly 
earnings  of  fifty-six  women  were  3s.  3^d.,  although 
some  of  them  worked  very  long  hours.  How  ridi- 
culous to  speak  of  such  workers  contributing  to  a 
pension  fund !  The  truth  is  that  few  of  them  live 
to  be  qualified  for  an  Old  Age  Pension.* 

These  may  be  extreme  instances;  it  is  to  be 
earnestly  hoped  they  are.  Certainly  they  are  not 
normal,  or  we  would  be  near  the  abyss.  But  it  is 
known  to  all  who  come  into  actual  contact  with 
suffering,  sentient,  sinning  men  and  women,  and 
not  merely  with  theories  and  statistics,  that  Old 
Age  Pensions  were  not  begun  a  day  too  soon  and 
that  only  a  beginning  has  been  made.  It  is  very 
dreadful  to  think  of  the  mournful  procession  in 
the  days  which  are  gone,  for  whom  the  only  pro- 
spect in  old  age,  even  in  our  land  of  enormous 
accumulations  of  wealth,  was  the  poorhouse.  "  To 
slave  while  there  is  strength — in  age  the  poorhouse, 
a  parish  shell  at  last,  and  the  little  bell  tolled 
hastily  for  a  pauper's  funeral." 

The  objections  which  have  been  urged  against 
such  a  provision  for  the  old  age  of  the  very  poorest 
of  our  industrial  veterans  have  been  singularly  futile, 
and  some  of  them  singularly  indecent.     Politicians 

*  It  may  be  questioned  whether  contributory  payments  to 
Old  Age  Pensions  are  not  just  taxes,  after  all,  disguised  like 
the  ancient  "benevolences." 


THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  275 

— it  would  be  unfair  to  call  them  statesmen — them- 
selves enjoying  sinecures  and  pensions,  or  lying 
in  wait  for  them,  have  asserted  that  any  such 
provision  would  sap  the  independence  of  our  work- 
men and  make  the  pauper  spirit  universal.  One 
of  our  Proconsuls,  just  after  the  nation  had  voted 
him  £50,000  for  his  services  abroad,  and  while  in 
receipt  of  a  pension  which  would  have  provided 
old  age  pensions  on  the  ordinary  scale  for  a  small 
town,  actually  argued  in  that  fashion.  The  same 
thing  was  done,  too,  by  one  who  receives  a  political 
pension  of  £1,200  a  year,  which  was  granted  only 
after  he  had  made  a  statutory  declaration  that  he 
required  help  to  enable  him  to  maintain  his  station 
in  life ! 

It  is  remarkable  how  ready  some  men  are  to 
risk  the  corruption  of  their  own  manly  spirit  of 
independence,  and  how  much  they  admire  public 
righteousness  in  others.  I  have  never  heard  that 
our  army  officers  are  degraded  by  the  prospect  of 
a  pension  when  they  retire ;  nor  have  I  ever  heard 
that  the  ministers  of  the  Church  to  which  I  belong 
are  corrupted  either  before  or  after  they  retire  by 
the  operations  of  the  Aged  and  Infirm  Ministers* 
Fund.  I  have  heard  that  Fund  itself  objected  to 
on  the  ground  that  working  men  have  as  much 
right  to  retiring  allowances  as  ministers,  with 
which  I  heartily  agree.  But  I  would  level  up  and 
not  down. 

It  has  also  been  argued  that  Old  Age  Pensions 
will  encourage  improvidence  and  prevent  thrift. 
But  this  objection  has  no  more  foundation  than 
the  other.  The  worst  improvidence  is  found  among 
those  who  know  well  that  no  matter  how  provi- 
dent they  are  they  cannot  escape  the  poorhouse  in 


276  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

the  end  of  the  day.  The  worst  waste  is  among 
those  who  know  that  whether  they  waste  or  not, 
they  will  be  on  the  rocks  at  last ;  and  the  references 
which  are  so  common  to  thrift  as  an  old-fashioned 
virtue  which  used  to  prevail  everywhere  have  but 
little  support  in  the  actual  annals  of  the  poor.  It 
is  one  of  the  virtues  which  seem  to  have  been 
always  old-fashioned,  like  the  obedience  of  children 
and  devotion  on  the  part  of  domestic  servants. 

Time  will  tell,  but  those  who  know  the  poor  best 
believe  that  the  provision  now  made  will  be  the 
very  incentive  to  thrift  which  was  most  required, 
and  that  the  poorest  will  now  see  the  advantage 
of  having  something,  no  matter  how  little,  to 
supplement  the  State  provision,  which  will  always 
be  tiny  at  the  best.  It  is  like  having  something 
already  in  the  Savings  Bank,  and  it  is  well  known 
that  that  makes  powerfully  for  thrift.  As  for 
generating  the  pauper  spirit,  the  old  methods  did 
that,  with  a  maximum  of  waste  and  a  minimum 
of  benefit  to  any  but  officials. 

The  Majority  and  Minority  alike  of  the  Poor 
Law  Commission  agree  that  the  present  system  is 
bad  and  must  be  ended,  and  it  is  intolerable  to 
find  that  under  these  laws  it  costs  4s.  6d.  to  give 
5s.  to  the  poor.  Old  Age  Pensions  rightly  adminis- 
tered will  exorcise  the  pauper  spirit — that  spirit 
which  happily,  however,  never  touches  many 
whose  names  are  on  the  poor  rolls.  The  old  age 
pensioner  of  the  State  will  no  more  be  degraded 
by  what  he  gets  than  the  veteran  soldier  or  infirm 
minister,  and  as  the  system  becomes  established  it 
will  put  our  entire  Poor  Law  system  on  a  new 
basis  and  change  the  whole  outlook  of  the  poor  in 
the  most  helpful  fashion.     There  will  no  longer  be 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  277 

a  great  dead  wall  ahead,  a  great  bank  of  black  fog, 
but  room  for  hope  and  some  incentive  to  growth. 
For,  as  those  who  live  among  the  poor  know,  one 
of  the  gloomiest  features  in  the  outlook,  not  merely 
of  the  poverty-stricken,  but  of  the  ordinary  work- 
ing man,  is  the  uncertainty  which  envelopes  him. 

Modern  conditions,  as  we  have  seen,  have  greatly 
intensified  this.  They  have,  indeed,  made  it  an 
appalling  menace.  There  is  nothing  more  tragic 
than  the  way  in  which  workers  fall  out  of  the 
ranks  and  are  trodden  underfoot  by  the  army 
which  comes  surging  on,  and  is  callous,  because 
hungry.  Men  in  the  mass  may  be  susceptible  to 
lofty  and  disinterested  emotion  and  appeal,  as  the 
same  men  are  not  when  taken  in  detail ;  but  when 
they  come  on  in  crowds  in  search  of  work  they 
are  often  strangely  indifferent  to  those  who  are 
down. 

Even  where  there  is  some  fixity  of  tenure  so 
long  as  there  is  health,  the  workman  has  the 
gloomiest  apprehensions,  almost  certainties,  as  to 
what  his  lot  will  be  when  he  is  no  longer  young. 
Many  tradesmen  cannot  get  regular  employment 
now  after  they  are  fifty,  although  as  a  matter  of 
fact  many  of  them  are  then  at  their  best.  If  the 
full  wage  must  be  paid,  employers  prefer  to  pay  it 
to  those  they  think  likeliest  to  earn  it ;  and  while 
many  employers  would  hesitate  to  discharge  a  man 
because  his  hair  is  turning  grey,  if  such  a  worker 
happens  to  be  out  of  work  he  finds  it  difficult  to 
get  regular  employment  again. 

So,  too,  if  compensation  must  be  paid  when 
accidents  happen,  employers  prefer  workmen  whom 
they  think  the  least  likely  to  meet  with  accidents ; 
and  thus  men  who  require   to  use  glasses,   and 


278  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

whose  strength  is  not  what  it  once  was,  are  turned 
adrift.  And  the  situation  thus  created  is  very 
pathetic  as  well  as  serious.  Even  very  considerable 
savings  cannot  tide  men  over  for  twenty  years  or 
more,  and  the  number  of  those  who  can  be  main- 
tained by  the  superannuation  or  other  benefit 
funds  of  the  Trade  Unions,  or  by  charitable  and 
benevolent  societies  which  have  funds  for  such 
purposes,  must  always  be  comparatively  small. 

So,  too,  the  number  of  those  who  can  get  lighter 
jobs  by  which  to  maintain  themselves  is  very 
limited,  and  by  and  by  the  same  influences  which 
led  to  them  losing  their  work  at  their  trades  make 
them  lose  their  lighter  jobs  too.  As  for  their 
families,  if  they  have  them,  even  if  they  are  grown 
up  and  able  to  help,  they  have  usually  enough  to 
do  with  themselves ;  and  few  experiences  can  be 
more  humiliating  for  any  man  than  to  require  to 
extort,  through  the  Poor  Law  inspector,  a  shilling 
a  week  from  this  son,  and  another  shilling  from 
that  son-in-law,  when  he  is  no  longer  fit  for  work. 
Only  working  folk  know  what  a  fruitful  source  of 
domestic  discord  and  unhappiness  this  has  been. 
Of  course,  where  there  are  no  savings  and  no  family, 
there  is  nothing  but  the  Church  and  an  Old  Age 
Pension  between  the  stricken  or  cast-off  and 
the  pauper's  fare  and  the  pauper's  grave. 

In  May,  1908,  Sir  John  Brunner,  the  eminent 
chemical  manufacturer,  made  an  interesting  con- 
tribution to  this  question  of  casting  aside  those 
who  are  no  longer  young  in  a  letter  to  the  Times 
newspaper.  He  told  that  in  connection  with  his 
works  every  accident,  however  trifling,  had  to  be 
reported  to  the  works'  surgery,  and  tables  have 
been  prepared  showing  the  relation  between  the 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  279 

number  of  accidents  and  the  age  of  the  injured. 
The  results  for  fifteen  years  show  "that  the 
proportion  of  accidents  becomes  less  and  less,  with 
remarkable  regularity,  as  the  men  advance  in  years, 
and  therefore  that  no  employer  is  justified  in  hia 
own  interest  in  refusing  to  take  elderly  men  into 
his  service,  or  in  dismissing  them,  in  the  belief  that 
they  are  more  liable  to  accident  than  their  younger 
brethren."*  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  such  views  will 
be  adopted  generally  and  put  into  practice,  for  the 
sense  of  uncertainty  is  terribly  real,  and  the  dread 
of  old  age  a  crushing  horror  for  very  many. 

Two  instances  will  illustrate  this  and  show  how 
it  acts.  The  one  grew  out  of  an  advertisement  for 
a  church  officer  for  a  rich  congregation  which 
offered  a  salary  of  £70  a  year.  Hundreds  of 
applications  poured  in,  many  of  them  coming  from 
men  who  w^ere  earning  far  more  than  the  salary 
offered,  and  were  in  what  seemed  at  first  sight 
more  desirable  situations.  But  they  were  attracted 
by  the  element  of  security  and  continuity  which 
such  a  situation  brings,  as  compared  w^ith  the 
certainty  of  what  bad  trade   or  accident  might 

*  The  figures  are  worth  preserving : — 

to  .10  O  «  O  >0  O  U3       O  *^ 

Suj<D<M  CO  CO  Tli  tH  10  iC3         <£>    P, 

Sr^BDl  I  I  1  I  I  life 


CO  CO  T|i 

KliCO^*-'  ^  '^  ^  '"'  ^^-'  *~'*'^iS 

?"*  i-i<NeoeOTHTj<»o      »o  =o 

^Xwork  ^  "^!"  }  633  :  533  :  616  :  656  :  531  :  882  :  251  :  246  =  3,848 

Percentage  of  ac- 
oi dents  per 
anntun 


8-5     6-8     4-2     3-6     2-8     3-7     2-4     2-4 


Similarly  Sir  George  Livesay,  in  a  record  of  accidents  at  the 
Metropolitan  Gas  Works  between  1897  and  1905,  found  that 
the  most  hazardous  age  was  between  twenty  and  thirty  years 
of  age  ;  the  percentage  of  accidents  among  men  between  fifty 
and  sixty  was  only  two-thirds  as  great. 


280  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

bring,  and  old  age  is  sure  to  bring,  in  other  occu- 
pations. The  great  attraction  of  the  beadleship 
was  that  it  was  practically  for  life. 

The  other  case  was  in  connection  with  the 
administration  of  a  great  estate  I  used  to  know 
well.  The  workmen  had  what  seemed,  and  really 
was,  a  ridiculously  low  wage  ;  hardly  a  living  wage, 
indeed.  Yet  they  were  reasonably  comfortable 
and  wonderfully  content,  because  in  addition  to 
their  pay,  and  certain  perquisites  which  often 
mitigate  the  hardship  of  country  service,  they 
knew  that  when  they  were  no  longer  fit  for  work, 
and  they  were  not  readily  pronounced  unfit,  the 
half  of  their  wages  would  be  continued  as  a  pension 
for  life.  The  poorhouse  never  came  into  their 
horizon,  and  although  they  were  always  poor,  far 
too  poor,  they  were  a  remarkably  fine  set  of  men 
and  got  on  remarkably  well.  Nor  did  their  pensions 
mean  as  much  for  their  landlord-employer  as  might 
at  first  sight  appear.  He  owned  nearly  the  whole 
parish,  and  not  only  were  the  wages  lower  than 
they  would  have  been  but  for  the  pensions,  the 
poor-rate  was  infinitesimal.  Much  that  was  paid 
in  retiring  allowances  was  saved  in  rates,  while  the 
moral  and  social  results  were  immensely  different. 

And  so  it  will  probably  be  everywhere  when  Old 
Age  Pensions  are  an  integral  and  established  part 
of  our  social  scheme.  There  will  be  vast  economies, 
in  addition  to  all  the  moral  gains,  as  thrift  is 
encouraged,  the  mists  of  uncertainty  roll  away, 
and  the  toiling  multitudes  are  saved  from  the 
presence  and  prospect  of  degradation. 

No  one  denies,  of  course,  that  there  are  difficulties 
in  the  way,  but  short  of  Socialism  there  can  be 
no  solution  of  the  labour  problem  which  does  not 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  281 

face  the  difficulties  on  Christian  lines,  and  if  some 
call  this  solution  Socialistic  we  need  not  quarrel 
over  words.  What  has  to  be  insisted  on  is  that  the 
problem  must  be  solved,  and  solved  soon  ;  that  the 
poorest  must  get  the  opportunity  to  develop  his 
manhood  and  live  a  clean  and  healthy  moral  life 
as  becomes  one  for  whom  Christ  died,  one  who  was 
made  at  first  in  the  image  of  God. 

It  would  lead  us  into  too  many  side-issues,  which 
are  only  for  experts,  to  discuss  the  relations  be- 
tween the  Poor  Law  system,  which  now  stands 
condemned,  and  the  labour  problem.  There  have 
been  times  when  the  relation  was  very  close  and 
important.  At  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
for  example,  outdoor  relief  was  so  abused  that  the 
labourer  in  England  had  ceased  to  be  regarded  as 
permanently  self-supporting.  The  result  was  that 
such  relief  offered  a  better  living  than  work,  and 
the  number  of  workers  decreased.  By  1834  the 
circle  of  pauperism  embraced  nearly  the  whole 
labouring  population  in  many  parishes. 

One  of  these  reported  that  "  men  with  families 
were  in  the  habit  of  being  relieved  who  were 
known  to  earn  from  15s.  to  18s.  a  week,  and  unless 
it  was  shown  that  the  earnings  of  the  family 
amounted  to  25s.  weekly  allowances  were  not 
refused."  This  was  a  parish  in  which  the  nail 
industry  was  carried  on  in  the  homes  of  the 
workers,  and  it  is  significant  that  the  people 
employed  in  this  trade  never  seem  to  have  re- 
covered from  this  degradation,  and  are  still  among 
the  worst-paid  and  most  miserable  workers  in 
the   country. 

The  English  "Workhouse  was  invented  in  1834  to 
save  the  nation  from  the  dire  results  of  this  evil 


282  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

system,  and  after  that  relief  to  able-bodied  persons 
was  refused  except  on  the  sacrifice  of  their  liberty, 
and  the  form  of  relief  was  made  as  unattractive 
as  possible. 

Nor  has  this  intimate  association  between  the 
Poor  Law  problem  and  the  labour  problem  come 
to  an  end.  The  Report  of  the  recent  Poor  Law 
Commission  bears  out  that,  contrary  to  expectation, 
the  evidence  laid  before  them  shows  clearly  that 
casual  labour  is  maintaining  a  stream  of  paupers 
much  greater  and  more  constant  than  either  low 
wages,  bad  housing,  or  even  drunkenness,  so  long 
as  these  are  combined  with  reasonable  regularity 
of  employment. 

The  gigantic  evils  which  still  exist  must  be  faced 
along  many  lines,  but  if  progress  is  to  be  made 
they  must  all  be  Christian  lines.  Whatever  help 
is  given  to  the  fallen  and  wounded  must  have 
regard  to  the  moral  uplift  and  training  of  those 
who  are  helped.  It  may  be  true  that  in  some  way 
or  other  we  shall  always  have  the  poor  with  us, 
although  Christ's  words  do  not  imply  that  we  need 
never  hope  to  drive  poverty  from  the  land ;  but  so 
long  as  it  exists  our  treatment  of  it  ought  to  be 
dissociated  from  any  degrading  elements  which 
would  perpetuate  or  develop  the  pauper  spirit. 

Nor  is  it  too  much  to  expect  that  by  means  of  a 
wise  system  of  Old  Age  Pensions,  combined  with  the 
spread  of  education  and  temperance  in  the  spirit 
of  Christ,  the  problem  of  poverty  will  become 
quite  manageable  and  cease  to  have  any  important 
bearing  on  the  problems  of  labour.  Nothing  less 
than  the  abolition  of  poverty  as  we  have  it  in  the 
misery  and  starvation  which  still  disgrace  our  land 
can  be  the  Christian  social  ideal. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  283 

There  are  only  too  many  who  seem  to  think 
they  have  some  sort  of  vested  interest  in  poverty 
and  the  poor.  They  spend  their  time  in  seeking  to 
regulate  poverty,  rather  than  in  seeking  to  abolish 
it.  They  hold  their  conferences  about  the  different 
aspects  of  the  dismal  theme,  and  all  too  seldom 
seem  to  be  inspired  by  any  passionate  yearning  or 
purpose  to  lift  the  submerged  wholly  out  of  the 
depths,  and  to  chase  the  dark  shadows  away  for 
ever. 

There  ought  to  he  some  provision  for  the  appli- 
cation of  compulsory  arbitration  to  labour  disputes. 
Considerable  progress  has  already  been  made  with 
voluntary  State-arranged  arbitration ;  and  just 
as  the  Post  Office,  with  its  identical  charges  for  any 
distance,  has  been  a  striking  lesson  in  what  the 
State  can  do  well  by  way  of  collectivism,  the  work 
of  the  great  voluntary  Conciliation  Boards  in  pre- 
venting or  arranging  labour  disputes  has  shown 
what  imperial  and  impartial  tribunals  with  ample 
powers  might  do  to  prevent  striking  on  the  one 
hand  and  locking-out  on  the  other.  Such  Boards, 
truly  representative  and  truly  authoritative,  could 
end  the  internecine  strife  with  which  we  are  so 
painfully  familiar ;  that  strife  in  which  victory  is 
the  next  worst  thing  to  defeat,  and  in  which  the 
nation  suffers  whatever  side  may  win. 

The  time  cannot  be  far  distant  when  men  will 
be  amazed  that  such  a  barbarous  state  of  affairs 
was  allowed  to  continue  so  long.  Strikes  and 
lock-outs  are  not  only  brutal  and  often  useless, 
they  are  injurious  to  the  best  interests  of  the 
entire  community.  It  may  be  that  even  the 
modern  State  cannot  altogether  deprive  men  of 
the  power  to  cease  work  after  due  notice ;  but  it  is 


284  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

clear  that  no  body  of  men,  whether  workmen  or 
employers,  have  the  right  to  ruin  a  district,  to 
drive  trade  out  of  its  wonted  channels,  or  to  inflict 
endless  injuries  on  non-combatants.  Still  less  can 
they  have  the  right  to  do  such  things  out  of 
sheer  wantonness  or  by  way  of  revenge. 

The  history  of  strikes  in  this  country  is  as 
suggestive  as  it  is  sad.  The  fiercest  of  them  have 
been  colossal  failures  which,  like  the  Crimean  war, 
could  have  been  avoided,  and  therefore  ought 
never  to  have  been.  No  well-governed  State  can 
continue  to  allow  such  wanton  waste  of  character 
or  capital.  It  is  not  surprising  therefore  that 
everything  is  pointing  in  the  direction  of  some 
sort  of  compulsory  arbitration.  As  far  back  as 
1849  a  beginning  was  made  in  the  silk  trade,  and 
since  1870  such  Boards  have  arranged  sliding-scales 
of  wages  in  the  coal,  iron,  and  steel  trades,  and 
done  valuable  service.  In  the  coal  trade,  ever 
since  the  great  dispute  of  1893,  Boards  composed 
of  equal  numbers  of  employers  and  employees, 
and  with  a  chairman  or  umpire  nominated  by  the 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons,  have  fixed  the 
rate  of  wages. 

In  1896  another  step  was  taken  by  the  inter- 
position of  Parliament  in  the  sphere  of  arbitration. 
Although  there  was  no  element  of  compulsion  in 
the  Conciliation  Act  of  that  year,  it  empowered  the 
Board  of  Trade  to  take  certain  steps  to  promote 
the  settlement  of  labour  disputes.  The  officials  of 
that  Board  may  hold  inquiries  and  endeavour  to 
arrange  meetings  between  the  parties  at  variance ; 
and  on  the  application  of  either  party  may  appoint 
an  arbiter.  During  the  five  years  subsequent  to 
the  passing  of  the  Act,  113  cases  were  dealt  with 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  285 

by  the  authorities,  and  a  settlement  was  effected 
in  70  of  these,  while  in  ten  others  the  parties  them- 
selves effected  a  settlement  while  negotiations  were 
in  progress.  Of  the  70  settlements,  32  resulted 
from  conciliation  and  38  from  arbitration. 

In  recent  years  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  who  became 
President  of  the  Board  of  Trade  in  1906,  has  been 
much  in  evidence  in  connection  with  conciliation, 
especially  in  connection  with  troubles  among  rail- 
way servants  and  in  the  cotton  trade.  His  experi- 
ence showed  that  in  many  cases  all  that  is  really 
required  is  to  bring  the  parties  together  under  a 
neutral  chairman ;  and  one  of  the  advantages  of 
Trade  Unionism  is  that  the  workers  can  be  dealt 
with  through  representatives  in  whom  they  have 
confidence  and  who  can  undertake  obligations  on 
their  behalf.  This  is  now  admitted  by  employers 
and  others  who  formerly  opposed  Unionism ; 
although  it  must  be  added  that  in  some  recent 
troubles  the  men  have  shown  a  tendency  to 
repudiate  their  representatives  which  would  be 
fatal  were  it  persisted  in.  The  action,  however,  in 
this  connection  of  men  like  Mr.  Barnes  and  Mr. 
Bell  has  shown  how  truly  worthy  of  trust  labour 
leaders  may  be,  and  here,  as  elsewhere,  there  can 
be  little  doubt  that  the  principle  of  solidarity  will 
win  the  day. 

Mr.  Winston  Churchill,  who  succeeded  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  as  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade, 
carried  voluntary  conciliation  still  further  in  the 
direction  of  wise  compulsion.  He  drew  up  three 
panels  from  which  Courts  of  Arbitration  may 
be  formed,  on  application  to  the  Board  of  Trade, 
when  a  question  arises  in  any  trade.  These  panels 
consist    respectively    of    those    who    can    act    as 


286  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

chairmen,  as  representatives  of  employers,  and  as 
representatives  of  employees.  The  Court  usually 
consists  of  one  member  from  each  panel,  and  those 
who  agree  to  apply  for  such  a  Court  bind  them- 
selves to  abide  by  its  decisions. 

A  newspaper  paragraph — of  date,  December  12, 
1909 — shows  how  the  Act  works  :  "  We  are  officially 
informed  by  the  Board  of  Trade  that  they  have 
received  an  application  from  the  Glasgow  Master 
Plasterers'  Association  and  the  Glasgow  Branch  of 
the  Scottish  National  Operative  Plasterers'  Federal 
Union  for  the  appointment  of  a  Court  of  Arbitra- 
tion to  decide  questions  which  have  arisen  between 
the  parties  with  regard  to  the  rate  of  wages  and 
the  limitation  of  the  number  of  apprentices.  The 
Board  of  Trade  have  accordingly  appointed  a 
Court,  consisting  of  his  Honour  Judge  O'Connor, 
chairman ;  Mr.  James  Piatt,  arbitrator,  from  the 
employers'  panel ;  and  Mr.  J.  D.  Prior,  arbitrator, 
from  the  labour  panel." 

If  this  scheme  works  as  well  as  it  ought,  it  must 
open  up  the  way  to  a  still  larger  element  of  com- 
pulsion, although  of  course,  the  step  from 
voluntary  to  compulsory  arbitration  is  a  big  one, 
and  there  are  serious  obstacles  in  the  way. 
Employers  naturally  object  to  submit  questions  to 
outsiders  which  involve  the  management  of  their 
business.  On  the  other  hand,  employees  naturally 
object  to  leave  the  question  of  their  wages  to  an 
arbiter  unless  the  question  of  a  living-wage  has 
been  settled  and  some  sort  of  minimum  guaranteed. 
Without  that  they  may  find  themselves  worse  off 
than  they  were ;  and  in  fairness  it  must  be  acknow- 
ledged that  the  umpire  usually  belongs  to  the  class 
which  sympathises  with  the  employer  rather  than 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  287 

the  employee.  This  is  all  the  truer  now  that 
limited  liability  companies  are  so  common,  and 
there  are  few  even  among  the  most  exclusive,  even 
among  the  judges,  who  are  not  interested  in  trade. 

The  denunciation  of  the  Act  providing  for  an 
eight-hours  day  for  miners,  by  Chambers  of 
Commerce  and  similar  bodies,  is  an  example  of 
how  such  a  tendency  might  show  itself ;  for  that 
has  been  based  on  the  belief  that  the  legislation  in 
question  would  raise  the  price  of  coal,  and  on  the 
pre-supposition  that  that  is  the  main  consideration 
involved. 

These  and  other  difficulties,  however,  have  been 
largely  overcome  by  our  own  colonists  in  New 
Zealand  and  New  South  Wales,  and  what  they 
have  done  with  the  best  results  can  surely  be  done 
at  home.  New  Zealand  has  earned  the  proud  title 
of  "  The  land  without  a  strike,"  and  even  recent 
troubles  in  New  South  Wales  must  not  be  taken 
as  proving  that  compulsion  has  been  a  failure 
there,  disconcerting  though  it  has  been  to  find  the 
workers  striking  in  defiance  of  the  law  while  their 
case  was  still  before  the  court.  But  it  takes  time 
to  overcome  inveterate  passions  and  bring  every- 
body into  line  ;  and  the  important  point  is  that 
even  there  the  law  triumphed  ;  that  the  recalcitrant 
leaders  were  sent  to  prison ;  and  that  the  men 
went  back  to  work  to  await  the  finding  of  the 
arbiters. 

It  was  always  felt  that  the  real  test  would  come 
when  the  finding  in  any  particular  case  was 
decisively  against  the  men  ;  and  in  an  early 
Australian  case  it  was  not  surprising  to  find 
two  hundred  men  out  of  five  thousand  involved 
refusing     to     accept     an    award    reducing    their 


288  THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

wages.  But  what  was  overlooked  by  adverse 
critics  at  home  was  that  in  this  crucial  case 
the  Trade  Union  officials  did  their  best  to  induce 
everybody  to  accept  the  finding ;  and  the  signifi- 
cant thing  was,  not  that  a  minority  refused  to 
submit,  but  that  the  vast  majority  of  the  work- 
men were  loyal  to  a  decision  so  distasteful.  The 
manager  of  one  of  the  largest  mines  involved  says  : 
"  To  my  mind  the  Arbitration  Act  has  twice  saved 
the  situation.  That  is  worth  considering  when 
one  reflects  how  much  Newcastle  has  suffered  from 
strikes  in  the  country ;  more,  perhaps,  than  any 
other  town.  Twice  in  Newcastle  it  has  saved  us 
from  a  ruinous  strike.  Each  side  in  turn  has 
accepted  the  decision  of  the  Court." 

It  may  be  expected,  therefore,  that  the  difficul- 
ties inevitable  to  a  change  so  vast  will  be  over- 
come as  they  emerge,  and  that  the  Colonies 
will  continue  to  show  the  way.  As  for  the  fear 
that  legislation  of  this  sort  will  prevent  capital 
from  flowing  into  the  Colonies,  it  is  enough  to 
say  that  they  continue  to  prosper ;  that  there 
have  been  times  when  capital  flowed  in  too  easily; 
and  that  their  prosperity  will  be  all  the  greater 
and  more  assured  if  it  comes  gradually  and  rests 
on  a  foundation  of   mutual  justice  and  good-will. 

It  is,  of  course,  always  more  difficult  to  intro- 
duce such  changes  into  an  old  country  with  hoary 
institutions  and  inveterate  prejudices ;  but  the 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  remaining  as  we  are 
will  probably  prove  greater  than  those  in  the 
way  of  advance,  and  the  loss  of  character,  as  well 
as  of  wages  and  capital,  which  is  caused  by  the 
present  barbarous  and  suicidal  w^ay  of  dealing 
with  disputes,  cannot  be  tolerated  much  longer. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  289 

The  next  step  to  compulsion  might  be  found  in 
something  like  the  Industrial  Disputes  Investiga- 
tion Act  which  has  been  in  operation  in  Canada 
since  1907,  and  has  won  the  unanimous  approval 
of  the  Press  there.  Thirty  days'  notice  of  any 
change  of  hours  or  wages  has  to  be  given  to  the 
other  side,  and  if  they  cannot  agree  the  Act 
comes  into  operation.  The  Government,  however, 
assumes  no  responsibility,  and  the  penalty  clauses 
are  applied  by  the  ordinary  Courts  of  Justice.  The 
very  development  of  the  inter-organisation  of 
the  different  trades  which  finds  scope  in  attempts 
to  arrange  a  national  strike,  and  the  develop- 
ment of  corresponding  organisations  among 
employers  with  the  purpose  of  replying  to  a  strike 
anywhere  by  a  lock-out  everywhere,  may  be  taken 
to  show  how  easily  we  might  pass  to  a  higher 
unity  embracing  both  sides. 

The  best  interests  of  the  employers  are  after 
all  the  same  as  those  of  their  worthiest  employees, 
and  our  most  enterprising  merchants  and  contrac- 
tors could  not  but  welcome  an  equitable  system 
which  would  deliver  them  from  the  uncertainty 
which  is  brought  into  all  their  operations  by  the 
possibility  of  labour  disputes.  There  are  contracts 
in  which  no  strike-clause  can  be  put,  and  even 
where  there  is  such  a  clause  it  is  a  source  of 
weakness  and  embarrassment. 

In  these  days,  when  trade  is  becoming  inter- 
national after  a  new  sort,  and  the  strife  of  the 
nations  is  so  keen,  a  system  so  destructive  as  that 
in  vogue  must  surely  soon  be  brought  to  an  end. 
It  is  a  barbarous  anachronism,  a  relic  of  the  time 
when  every  man's  hand  was  against  his  neighbour; 
and  it  is   evident  that  all  the  influence  of    the 

Chrittianity  amd  Labour.  \  20 


290  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

Christian  Church  should  be  exerted  in  favour  of 
any  honourable  means  of  ending  the  class  hatreds, 
the  blighting  of  homes,  and  the  general  unsettle- 
ment  which  result  from  the  present  system. 

What  is  wanted  most  of  all  in  the  industrial 
order  is  justice ;  and  every  Christian  should  have  a 
passion  for  righteousness  and  truth.  Blessed  are 
the  peacemakers ;  and  there  is  a  large  field  here  for 
all  who  would  bring  in  the  kingdom  of  the  Prince 
of  Peace.  No  agitation  is  less  selfish  or  less  sec- 
tional than  this  for  the  termination  of  strikes  and 
lock-outs.  It  is  for  the  good  of  the  entire  com- 
munity, for  the  peace  and  prosperity  of  all  the 
people,  and  it  will  be  passing  strange  if  a  way  out 
cannot  be  found.  It  is  a  great  blunder  to  imagine 
that  the  demand  for  compulsory  arbitration  is  in 
the  interest  of  Labour  or  Trade  Unionism  as  such. 
It  is  not  even  certain  that  organised  labour  would 
favour  it  as  much  as  organised  employers.  The 
demand  is  in  the  interest  of  the  nation,  which 
should  no  more  be  exposed  to  the  tyranny  of  Trade 
Unions,  which  like  all  other  institutions  are  fallible, 
than  to  the  coercion  of  federated  employers. 

To  think  for  one  moment  of  the  labour  problem 
as  synonymous  with  the  Trade-Union  problem  is  a 
vast  mistake.  It  is  far  bigger  and  more  difficult 
than  that,  since  there  are  multitudes  of  workers 
who  are  not  connected  with  any  organisation,  as 
well  as  multitudes  more  whose  employment  is  so 
precarious  that  their  primary  problem  is  how  to 
get  enough  to  eat.  Neither  Church  nor  State 
should  face  this  question  from  the  standpoint  of 
any  one  class,  except  in  so  far  as  the  Church,  in 
harmony  with  the  practice  and  precept  of  her 
Lord,  should  have  special  regard  to  those  who  are 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  291 

least  able  to  help  themselves.  Before  the  altar,  as 
in  the  law  courts,  there  should  be  no  difference 
between  employer  and  employed. 

The  true  reciprocity  which  is  our  ideal  can  be 
attained  only  when  both  Church  and  State  are 
loyal  to  it  and  honour  all  men.  The  Church  is  not 
to  be  debarred  from  letting  her  light  shine  all 
round,  and  from  declaring  the  whole  counsel  of 
God,  because  of  the  obscurantism  which  declares 
that  she  should  confine  herself  to  what  is  purely 
spiritual;  any  more  than  the  State  is  to  be 
deterred  from  doing  her  duty  to  the  wounded  and 
weak  because  of  the  individualism  which  declares 
that  this  involves  the  secular  reproduction  of  the 
Inquisition. 

Although  Trade  Unionism  is  an  important  factor 
in  the  labour  problem,  it  is  not  necessary  to  dis- 
cuss it  here.  It  is  equally  foolish  to  denounce  the 
Old  Unionism,  or  to  ban  the  New ;  and  it  is  sheer 
affectation  to  ignore  either.*  While,  however, 
we  can  rejoice  in  the  powerful  protest  which 
Trade  Unionism  has  made  against  the  evils  of 
individualism,  and  in  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice 
and  self-abnegation  which  it  has  so  often  mani- 
fested, we  are  also  free  to  admit  that  it  has 
often  been  one-sided  and  short-sighted.  Few, 
if  any,  of  the  great  strikes  which  it  has 
organised  have  been  really  successful,  while 
some   of    the   restrictions   which    it    has   imposed 

*  Most  employers  now  acknowledge  that  it  is  an  advantage 
to  have  Unions  to  negotiate  with ;  and  the  great  efforts  of 
these  Unions  to  improve  the  condition  of  their  members 
have  not  been  prompted  by  selfishness  so  much  as  by 
yearnings  for  opportunities  to  develop  their  lives,  and  many 
sacrifices  have  been  made  by  them  for  this  end. 


292  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

have  not  only  added  to  the  difficulties  of  the 
employers  unnecessarily,  but  have  reacted  against 
the  labourers  themselves.  It  is  noble  for  the  better 
workman  to  put  himself  on  the  same  plane  as  his 
weaker  or  less-skilful  comrade  at  the  bench,  and 
the  moral  value  of  this  aspect  of  Unionism  has  not 
been  sufficiently  recognised ;  but  even  this  may 
lead  to  practices  which  are  hurtful,  alike  to  the 
superior  and  the  inferior  workman. 

There  ought  to  be  some  worthy  incentive  to 
every  one  to  do  his  best  if  labour  is  to  be 
moralised  and  spiritualised.  Herbert  Spencer 
has  pointed  out  that  the  result  of  the  restric- 
tions common  now  is  that  "the  more  energetic 
and  skilful  workmen  are  not  allowed  to  profit 
to  the  full  extent  of  their  capacity ; "  while  Mr. 
Mill  said:  "It  is  known  that  the  bad  workmen 
who  form  the  majority  of  the  operatives  in  many 
branches  of  industry  are  decidedly  of  opinion  that 
the  bad  workmen  ought  to  receive  the  same  wages 
as  the  good,  and  that  no  one  should  be  allowed, 
through  piece-work  or  otherwise,  to  earn  by 
superior  skill  or  industry  more  than  others  can 
earn  without  it." 

But  it  is  hardly  correct  to  argue  as  if  the  Unions 
insist  that  all  workmen,  inefficient  or  professedly 
efficient,  shall  be  paid  at  the  same  rate.  What 
they  really  seek  to  do  is  to  fix  a  minimum  wage 
below  which  the  craftsman  should  not  go,  because 
it  means  starvation.  They  do  not  prevent  their 
members  from  getting  as  much  as  they  can ;  but 
they  seek  to  protect  them  from  being  compelled 
to  take  as  little  as  the  employer  chooses  to  give 
them.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to  understand  why  the 
tone  of  such  criticism  as  that  of  Spencer  and  Mill 


THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  293 

is  keenly  resented.  It  involves  a  theory  which 
would  end  in  setting  man  against  man  in  the  very 
worst  fashion,  and  the  unions  are  right  in  opposing 
it  with  all  their  might. 

Yet  on  the  other  hand,  if  the  system  which  they 
criticise  does  tend  to  reduce  workers,  good,  bad, 
and  indifferent,  to  the  same  level  of  mediocrity  and 
to  prevent  the  ablest  workmen  from  doing  their 
best  to  their  own  advantage  and  the  advantage  of 
others,  it  is  not  enough  to  reply  that  a  still  more 
grievous  wrong  may  be  inflicted  on  the  moral  self 
of  the  worker  from  the  other  side. 

There  are  dangers  both  ways,  and  those  who 
realise  that  the  strength  of  any  organisation  is 
in  proportion  to  the  number  of  self-reliant  and 
fully-developed  men  in  it,  will  set  themelves 
strenuously  against  everything  which  can  reduce 
workmen  to  being  machines,  whether  the  danger 
comes  from  the  side  of  immoral  competition  or 
from  the  side  of  eye-service,  scamping,  and 
shirking  a  fair  day's  work. 

When  once  labour  has  come  to  its  own  there 
will  probably  be  a  greater  tendency  than  there 
is  now  to  give  and  take  ;  just  as  it  is  probable 
that  if  ever  we  have  a  Labour  government  it  will 
be  harder  on  the  loafer  and  more  insistent  on 
the  need  for  every  one  learning  how  to  work 
than  the  present  ruling  classes  can  be.  Only 
the  strong  can  be  generous ;  and  it  is  said  that 
in  the  revolutionary  era  in  Europe  some  sixty 
years  ago  governments  were  weak  because  they 
were  not  sure  of  their  position.  In  America,  on 
the  other  hand,  where  the  democracy  believes 
in  itself,  they  use  machine-guns  if  need  be  to 
scatter  mobs. 


294  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

And  certainly  there  is  room  for  both  give  and 
take  in  the  relations  of  Unions  and  employers. 
The  limitation  of  the  number  of  apprentices, 
for  example,  for  which  so  much  can  be  said,  has 
in  some  instances  been  carried  so  far  as  to  injure 
instead  of  benefiting  those  already  in  the  trades 
involved.  So,  too,  laudable  as  attempts  to  fix  the 
amount  of  work  a  man  might  do  as  a  protest 
against  "  horsing  "  may  have  been,  they  have  led 
to  the  "  ca-canny "  policy,  which  is  a  menace  to 
morality  as  well  as  to  efficiency. 

In  some  quarters,  too,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
insistence  on  a  minimum  standard  wage,  so 
necessary  in  the  interest  of  a  living  wage,  has 
this  enormous  drawback,  that  in  trades  where 
great  physical  strength  is  needed,  those  who  are 
no  longer  young  and  as  alert  as  they  were  have 
to  make  way  for  those  who  are  stronger  in  a 
heart-breaking  fashion.  Sir  John  Brunner,  Sir 
George  Livesey,  and  others  may  prove  that  such 
action  is  needless,  but  error  dies  hard ;  and  under 
the  present  system  many  an  elderly  man  who 
might  have  worked  for  years  at  a  lower  wage 
than  the  standard  in  consideration  of  failing 
vigour,  goes  to  swell  the  number  of  those  who 
depend  on  casual  employment. 

It  is  only  fair  to  add,  however,  that  the  "too  old 
at  forty "  cry  has  been  shown  to  be  somewhat  of 
a  myth,  and  that  matters  are  mending  in  this 
respect.  In  1886  the  average  age  of  men  begin- 
ning to  draw  superannuation  benefit  from  the 
Amalgamated  Society  of  Engineers  was  61J 
years,  whereas  in  1906  it  had  risen  to  63 J,  and  in 
1907  to  64|.  But  engineering  is  a  trade  where  skill 
counts  for  more  even  than  strength,  and  it  is 
otherwise  in  some  other  trades. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  295 

These  reflections  on  some  phases  of  Trade 
Unionism  are  made  in  no  captious  spirit,  but 
with  the  utmost  sympathy  for  what  it  has  done 
and  stands  for;  and  with  the  heartiest  recogni- 
tion that  as  things  are  it  is  not  only  advisable  but 
necessary  that  workers  should  combine  to  secure 
their  rights.  But  Trade  Unionism  is  big  enough 
and  strong  enough  now  to  be  criticised  ;*  and  if 
only  the  Christian  ideal  were  more  adequately 
reaUsed  on  both  sides  as  well  as  by  those  who 
are  on  neither  side,  and  it  were  seen  more  clearly 
that  every  right  involves  a  duty,  the  rights  of 
all  would  be  more  adequately  secured  than  they 
are  now. 

Not  only  so,  but  it  would  become  obvious  that 
there  is  no  need  to  concentrate  the  forces  of 
capital  and  labour  into  separate,  and  even  hostile, 
camps,  as  if  the  one  army  could  only  flourish  at 
the  expense  of  the  other.  Both  alike  are  neces- 
sary, although  there  ought  to  be  a  better  distri- 
bution of  the  rewards  of  the  common  efforts ; 
and  whenever  that  comes  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
interests  of  the  two  forces  are  identical,  and 
that  they  must  stand  or  fall  together. 

Everything,  however,  depends  on  the  Christian 
ideal  being  realised,  and  that  great  consumma- 
tion cannot  be  attained  unless  the  atmosphere 
in  which  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being 

*  Probably  about  one- third  of  all  the  manual  labourers  m 
the  nation  are  in  the  Trade  Unions.  The  membership  in  the 
various  Unions  in  1907  was  2,406,746,  which  showed  an  in- 
crease of  43  per  cent,  in  ten  years.  The  hundred  principal 
Tinions  reported  on  by  the  Labour  Department  had  an  income 
of  nearly  two  and  a  half  millions  in  1907.  Their  accrmioilated 
funds  amounted  at  the  same  date  to  nearly  six  millions. 


296  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

is  Christianised.  To  bring  this  about  is  the  main 
part  of  the  service  to  which  every  Christian  is 
called.  It  is  the  one  form  of  service  in  which 
every  believer  can  share,  since  everything  may 
be  said  or  thought  or  done  so  as  to  contribute 
to  this  end. 

Nor  is  it  too  much  to  claim  that  there  are 
many  indications  of  progress.  Even  the  discon- 
tent and  unrest  which  prevail  in  many  quarters 
are  proof  of  this  ;  and  healing  will  follow  the 
troubling  of  the  waters.  "We  have  only  to  com- 
pare the  tone  which  prevailed  in  commercial 
circles  even  a  third  of  a  century  ago  with  what 
prevails  now  to  see  how  great  the  change  for 
the  better  has  been.  In  the  year  1871  the  Chair- 
man of  a  great  English  railway  company, 
speaking  at  the  annual  meeting  of  his  company, 
said  that  "the  remuneration  of  labour,  the 
value  of  which  altogether  depends  on  the  one 
great,  universal  law  of  supply  and  demand,  is  a 
question  in  which  there  is  little  room  for 
sentiment."  A  leading  article  in  the  Times 
newspaper,  in  the  year  1885,  declared  that  the 
level  to  which  the  cup  of  human  happiness  can 
be  filled  up  is  "  determined  by  laws  as  inexor- 
able as  that  of  gravity." 

But  such  statements  are  seldom  made  in  public 
now,  whatever  may  be  thought  in  the  dens  and 
caves  of  the  earth  amid  ignorance  and  obscu- 
rantism. The  intervening  years  have  shown  that 
the  problem  of  wages  is  far  more  complex  than 
was  then  imagined  by  the  politicians  and  econo- 
mists, as  well  as  by  the  capitalists ;  and  that 
such  things  as  the  gospel  and  sentiment  enter 
into  it  largely. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  297 

Not  only  has  the  standard  of  living  risen 
steadily  in  these  fruitful  years,  so  that  the  rear- 
guard is  where  the  vanguard  used  to  be,  but 
what  is  even  more  significant,  the  standard  of 
aspiration  has  risen  even  more  quickly.  The 
outlook  has  so  changed  that  almost  all  thoughtful 
and  humane  men  now  recognise  gratefully  and 
gladly  that  the  doctrines  so  recently  held  in 
honour  are  wholly  inadequate,  where  they  are 
not  demonstrably  misleading  and  untrue.  Even 
those  who  cannot  yet  tell  where  they  are  wrong, 
feel  that  they  are  wrong,  and  resent  them. 

All  through  the  relations  of  employers  and 
employed  there  is  room  and  need  for  Christian 
sentiment.  The  absence  of  such  sentiment  is 
not  only  a  danger  and  loss  at  every  point,  it 
tells  directly  on  the  quality  and  quantity  of 
the  work  done.  A  French  monarch  once  refused 
a  request  on  the  ground  that  it  was  only  a 
sentiment.  "  Yes,  my  liege,"  replied  the  petitioner, 
"but  you  are   only  a  sentiment." 

All  our  hopes  for  the  future  depend  on  labour 
being  ennobled  by  ideal  conceptions,  noble  senti- 
ments, noble  inspiration,  through  the  power  of 
Christian  truth  ;  and  incessant  warfare  ought 
to  be  waged  against  the  materialism  and  paganism 
which  seek  to  reduce  the  relationships  of  the 
labour  market  to  the  action  and  inter-action 
of  inexorable  laws.  The  laws  which  govern  the 
work  done  by  sentient  men  and  women,  with 
passions  and  moral  self-respect,  with  yearnings 
capable  of  fathoming  hell  or  rising  high  as 
heaven,  cannot  be  inexorable  in  the  sense 
alleged. 

The  relations  of  employers  and  employed,  both 


298  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

alike  made  for  God  and  unable  to  realise  their 
true  being  apart  from  Him,  cannot  be  altogether 
kept  out  of  the  realm  of  sentiment ;  and  the 
tendency  to  reason  from  laws  of  natural  selection 
among  the  lower  animals  to  the  lives  of  men 
and  women  for  whom  Christ  died  is  wholly 
irrational. 

The  extent  to  which  this  is  now  recognised 
is  the  measure  of  the  change  which  has  taken 
place,  and  is  so  full  of  promise.  Never  was 
the  waste  of  human  lives  and  the  failure  of  so 
many  to  attain  blessedness  felt  to  be  so  intoler- 
able as  it  is  now ;  and  never  was  there  such 
determination  that  life's  joys  must  not  be  alto- 
gether postponed  to  the  hereafter.  There  must 
be  some  brightness  here  and  now  for  all  who 
love  mercy  and  do  justly ;  and  more  than  ever, 
in  spite  of  prevalent  indifference,  apparent  and 
real.  Christian  truth  is  leavening  the  thought 
and  aspirations  of  our  generation  in  a  new  way ; 
and  many  are  now  looking  out  through  Christ's 
eyes  on  the  great  areas  which  are  still  shrouded 
in  gloom,  and  on  the  masses  who  still  toil  with 
neither  joy  nor  hope. 

It  is  not  true  that  men  and  women  find  their 
own  level  if  left  to  themselves,  as  water  does; 
nor  are  they  ever  left  to  themselves,  as  if  they 
were  fortuitous  atoms  and  not  parts  of  a  great 
organism.  To  reason  from  what  gravity  does  in 
the  case  of  water,  to  the  ceaseless,  pervasive 
influence  of  immortal  souls  on  each  other,  is  to 
outrage  analogy  and  discredit  logic.  Even  water 
does  not  always  find  its  own  level ;  and  so  long 
as  man  is  a  social  and  spiritual  being,  that  is 
so  long   as  he    is    man,   there    will    be    obstacles 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  299 

without  number  to  prevent  him  from  being 
altogether  subject  to  blind  and  inexorable  laws. 
He  may  have  little  choice  as  to  the  horses 
which  are  harnessed  to  the  car  of  his  life,  but 
he  must  drive  them  somehow,  and  that  means 
much. 

Not  only  so,  but  there  is  abundant  scope  for 
the  operation  of  Christ's  laws,  which  protest 
against  man's  inhumanity  to  man;  which  insist 
on  the  infinite  value  of  the  soul ;  and  which 
demand  that  the  weak  and  even  the  wayward 
shall  no  longer  be  driven  ruthlessly  to  the  wall 
or  trampled  contemptuously  under  foot.  It  is 
not  Christian,  but  pagan,  for  any  to  look  on 
while  others  for  whom  Christ  died  are  torn 
among  the  jagged  wheels;  and  excuse  themselves 
by  the  plea  that  such  things  are  determined 
by  blind  laws,  and  that  there  is  no  room  for 
sentiment  in  the  relations  of  employer  and 
employed. 

Nor  is  it  one  whit  more  Christian  to  find  comfort 
in  the  reflection  that  social  discontent  and  a 
degraded  class  are  nothing  new.  What  does  it 
matter  how  long  evil  conditions  have  lasted  if 
they  are  evil  and  can  be  dealt  with  hopefully  now  ? 
The  problem  of  the  distressed  labourer  is  indeed 
dreadfully  ancient ;  but  it  has  assumed  many  new 
aspects  as  the  ages  passed,  and  its  present  aspect 
is  the  most  hopeful  of  any  through  which  it  has 
yet  passed. 

The  way  in  which  it  now  centres  round  the  two 
opposing  forces  of  Capital  and  Labour;  the  con- 
centration of  enormous  power  in  the  hands  of 
vast  financial  combinations ;  the  advent  of  the 
working  man  to   political  power ;   the  enormous 


300  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

development  of  machinery ;  and  the  herding  of 
great  masses  of  labourers  into  huge  factories  and 
workshops  and  densely-crowded  centres  of  popu- 
lation, are  all  comparatively  new  features  in  the 
situation,  and  render  it  critical  and  urgent  after 
a  new  fashion.  For  weal  or  woe  it  must  now  be 
solved  somehow,  and  ancient  as  the  problem  is 
there  are  elements  in  it  which  are  full  of  hope 
if  it  be  faced  under  the  leadership  of  Christ,  just 
as  there  are  also  elements  which  are  full  of  danger 
and  even  probabilities  of  disaster  if  the  solution 
is  sought  for  under  any  other  auspices. 

It  is  one  of  many  proofs  that  even  the  Church 
is  sharing  in  the  materialistic  spirit  of  our  age 
that  so  many  who  bear  the  name  of  Christ  find 
it  possible  to  ignore  His  specific  instructions.  They 
talk  of  His  love  for  the  perishing,  and  about  nothing 
being  fruitful  but  sacrifice,  and  yet  look  with  un- 
concern on  the  masses  of  the  over-crowded,  under- 
paid, and  unemployed  over  whom  He  yearns,  as 
if  such  a  state  of  affairs  were  an  irreversible 
ordinance  of  God.  As  for  the  faith  some  have 
that  doles,  either  of  m.oney  or  work,  will  cure 
our  social  ills,  it  is  altogether  futile,  even  as  an 
outlet  for  their  goodness  of  heart  which  persists  in 
spite  of  materialistic  economics.  Charity  is  divine, 
and  there  will  always  be  room  for  it  even  in  an 
ideal  State.  Charity  Organisation  Societies,  too, 
in  spite  of  all  the  dislike  for  them  which  finds  ex- 
pression in  so  many  ways,  have  helped  many  and 
will  be  needed  so  long  as  there  are  loafers,  soakers, 
and  spongers.  But  charity  can  only  deal  with 
exceptional  cases,  and  charity  organisation  how- 
ever Christian,  can  solve  no  problems,  but  can 
only  meet  special  emergencies.      What  must  be 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  301 

secured  is  organised  work;  work  sufficiently  re- 
munerative and  in  harmony  with  the  labourer's 
destiny  as  an  immortal  soul ;  and  Christian  hearts 
must  be  turned  in  that  direction  instead  of  being 
content  to  help  the  waifs  and  strays. 

It  is  true  that  some  raise  the  cry  about  the  right 
to  work  who  have  no  desire  to  work,  and  have 
never  worked,  but  if  that  demand  be  taken  along 
with  the  correlative  duty  to  work  it  cannot  be 
condemned  and  can  hardly  be  ignored.  Half  a 
century  ago,  when  charity  was  often  very  mawkish 
and  unpractical,  the  plea  was  tendered  that  some- 
thing might  be  done  for  those  who  had  never 
been  in  prison  as  well  as  for  those  who  had  been 
there  ;  that  efforts  might  be  made  to  prevent  men 
from  drifting  into  crime  as  well  as  to  help  them 
after  they  had  fallen.  So  there  is  room  now  for 
the  kindred  plea  that  our  primary  concern,  both 
in  Church  and  State,  should  be  with  the  worker 
and  not  the  loafer;  that  we  should  strenuously 
seek  the  salvation  of  the  labouring  classes ;  and 
the  salvation  of  the  land  through  their  work. 

We  must  begin  with  the  lads  and  put  an  end 
to  the  manufacture  of  loafers,  one  of  the  most 
flourishing  of  our  industries,  and  train  everybody 
to  work.  This  has  been  made  painfully  evident 
in  the  report  of  the  Poor  Law  Commissioners  and 
in  connection  with  recent  attempts  to  deal  with 
distress  due  to  unemployment.  Mr.  John  Burns, 
as  President  of  the  Local  Government  Board,  has 
said  that  the  saddest  and  most  difficult  of  all  the 
problems  raised  has  been  that  of  the  comparatively 
young  men  who  have  never  really  worked  and 
have  never  so  learned  to  work  as  to  be  able  to  do 
anything  useful.     "The  grave  condition  of   boy- 


302  THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

labour  to-day,"  say  the  Commissioners,  "  calls  for 
immediate  action,"  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the 
Church  as  well  as  the  State  will  hear  the  bitter 
cry  of  those  who  are  being  so  trained  that  they 
cannot  but  end  in  being  thrown  on  the  "scrap 
heap  of  casual  labour."  * 

Christianity  alone  can  deal  finally  and  effectively 
with  the  labour  problem  and  the  labourer,  because 
it  alone  can  touch  the  whole  round  circle  of  human 
life.  Infinitely  important  as  character  is  compared 
with  environment,  environment  must  be  attended 
to  as  well  as  character ;  and  the  sunless  gulfs,  the 
frozen  wastes  must  everywhere  be  illumined  and 
gladdened  by  the  sunshine  of  the  Saviour  Christ. 
The  stones  must  be  taken  away  from  the  grave's 
mouth  that  they  who  are  therein  may  hear  the 
voice  of  the  Son  of  Man.  Hope  must  be  restored 
and  despair  chased  away  that  the  broken  and 
crushed  may  rise  to  newness  of  life. 

Man  cannot  live  by  bread  alone,  and  multitudes 
are  weary  of  the  attempt  to  do  so  with  its  inevit- 
able disillusionment  and  failure.  There  is  always 
something  of  the  infinite  in  man,  no  matter  how 
far  he  may  have  drifted  from  God,  and  when  he 
fails  in  his  quest  the  blackest  shadow  which  falls 
on  his  wasted  life  is  that  of  a  perverted  ideal. 
He  had  been  seeking  more  than  he  knew,  and  there 
is  deep  disgust  in  his  heart  because  he  has  never 
found  God,  who  made  him  for  Himself,  and  apart 
from  whom  he  can  neither  do  his  true  work  nor 
find  his  rightful  place. 

But  there  must  be  an  appropriate  physical  basis 

*  The  heart,  if  not  the  conscience,  of  the  nation  has  been 
touched  by  the  revelations  as  to  what  are  called  ' '  blind-alley  " 
occupations,  so  disastrous  to  all  concerned. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  303 

for  the  spiritual  life  since  man  is  body  and  soul ; 
and  no  more  a  soul  with  a  body  attached,  than  a 
body  which  has  a  soul.  However  we  may  argue 
as  to  what  is  cause  and  what  effect  in  connection 
with  abounding  social  evils,  nothing  is  more 
certain  than  that  physical  destitution  crushes  out, 
steadily  and  surely,  every  yearning  after  God. 
To  be  for  ever  defeated  in  the  battle  to  keep  the 
wolf  from  the  door,  or  even  from  the  table  where 
the  children's  bread  is  lying,  blocks  the  way  to 
the  unseen,  and  even  destroys  the  desire  for  the 
unseen. 

Nothing  short  of  a  revolution  can  provide  a 
solution  on  an  adequate  scale,  and  nothing  but 
applied  Christianity  can  bring  about  a  revolution 
which  will  be  a  blessing  and  not  a  calamity.  The 
revolution  is  coming  in  any  case ;  what  Christians 
can  secure  is  that  it  will  come  peacefully  and 
hopefully  under  the  flag  of  Christ,  and  not  under 
any  alien  master. 

Most  of  those  who  are  studying  history  and 
political  economy  with  open  eyes  and  responsive 
hearts  see  now  that  apart  from  the  gospel,  with 
its  healing  influences  and  its  Divine  power,  dire 
catastrophe  cannot  be  averted ;  and  that  quite 
apart  from  any  prejudice  in  favour  of  dogmatic 
Christianity.  Some  see  it  who  are  not  themselves 
believers.  As  has  already  been  shown,  men  like 
the  late  Professor  Thorold  Rogers  and  the  late 
Mr.  Lecky  were  profoundly  convinced  that  it  is 
only  through  such  forces  as  the  gospel  alone 
can  bring  to  bear  on  the  problem  that  it  can 
ultimately  be  solved  in  any  proper  way. 

Whatever  historical  foundation  there  may  be  for 
Mr.  Keir  Hardie's  view  that  from  the  beginning 


304  THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

of  the  thirteenth  till  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth 
century  things  were  better  than  they  are  now, 
with  rude  abundance  for  all,  and  neither  paupers 
nor  millionaries,  the  fact  remains  that  during 
the  last  twenty-five  years  there  has  been  abund- 
ance of  the  necessaries  of  life,  even  for  the  very 
poor,  after  a  new  fashion.  Wages  have  gone  up, 
while  prices  have  fallen,  and  the  consumption  of 
such  articles  as  ham  and  tea  and  tobacco  has 
increased  steadily.  There  are  more  holidays,  too, 
and  shorter  hours  ;  while  opportunities  for  recrea- 
tion and  amusement  are  far  more  numerous.  The 
standard  of  living  has  gone  up  everywhere,  and 
prevalent  discontent  is  partly  divine,  inasmuch  as 
it  tells  of  new  yearnings  and  needs  which  have 
come  with  growth. 

Yet  it  is  becoming  increasingly  evident  that 
satisfactory  as  this  movement  of  amelioration  is, 
it  is  not  along  these  lines  that  the  moral  and 
social  millennium  will  come.  It  is  one  of  the 
most  striking  proofs  that  man  was  made  for  God 
and  has  something  of  the  infinite  in  him,  that 
not  only  does  material  good  alone  not  satisfy  his 
deeper  yearnings,  it  sometimes  only  accentuates 
how  insatiable  these  are.  The  need  for  something 
more  than  mere  material  progress,  something 
permanent  and  enduring  on  the  lines  of  spiritual 
achievement,  is  as  great  as  ever. 

If  the  work  of  consecrating  the  greater  abund- 
ance and  the  greater  leisure  which  are  now 
coming  to  so  many,  so  that  they  will  be  a 
blessing  and  not  a  hindrance,  is  ever  to  be  done, 
it  must  be  done  by  Christianity.  Nor  does  the 
gospel  require  to  be  turned  into  a  system  of 
political   economy  that  it  may  do  this.     Rightly 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  305 

understood  it  involves  a  political  philosophy  just 
as  it  involves  a  theory  of  the  universe,  but  from 
first  to  last  it  must  be  a  religion  if  it  is  to 
accomplish  anything. 

In  his  "  Industrial  Day-Dreams,"  although  he 
takes  up  a  very  advanced  position  regarding 
social  reform  on  Christian  lines,  Mr.  Keeble 
contends  that  "  the  Church  should  confine  herself 
to  fostering  the  spiritual  life  of  men,  instructing 
and  quickening  the  conscience,  declaring  social 
duties,  and  pointing  out  social  perils  and  evils." 

But  this  apparent  limitation  of  the  functions 
of  the  Church  in  reality  means  a  vast  extension 
of  her  sphere  of  influence.  Never  yet  has  she 
risen  to  these  heights,  and  if  only  she  rose 
to  them  she  would  do  much  to  commend  her 
Lord,  not  only  to  workers  and  reformers,  but  to 
sinners  of  mankind.  She  cannot  compete  with 
experts  in  economics,  but  she  must  be  the  supreme 
moral  and  spiritual  authority  among  men  if  she 
is  to  do  the  work  to  which  she  is  called,  and  her 
voice  must  be  heard  wherever  men  congregate. 
She  must  be  above  party  politics,  but  she  must 
be  foremost  in  every  movement  for  social  reform. 
It  is  not  her  business  to  say  whether  or  not  Old 
Age  Pensions  should  be  contributory,  but  it  is 
her  business  to  insist  that  no  taint  of  pauperism 
shall  be  put  on  her  honest  poor.  There  is  much 
in  connection  with  the  right  to  work  which  she 
will  gladly  leave  to  the  experts,  but  as  the  great 
expert  in  morals  she  must  be  able  to  lift  that 
question  to  the  moral  plane  by  insisting  that  all 
who  are  willing  and  able  to  work  shall  be  able 
to  live  by  their  work. 

Nor  will  she  be  prevented  by  the  cheap  sneer 

Christianity  and  Labour,  21 


306  THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

of  the  scorner  from  insisting  on  the  worth  of 
such  commonplace  remedies  for  social  evils  as 
letting  the  gospel  tell  all  round  on  the  home 
life,  and  refusing  to  join  in  the  conspiracy  of 
silence  regarding  the  terrible  fruits  of  the  pre- 
valent indulgence  in  strong  drink.  What  is 
needed  most  is  not  knowledge,  but  power,  and  the 
gospel  alone  is  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation. 

But  the  whole  gospel  must  be  proclaimed  and 
lived  if  it  is  to  have  all  its  power.  The  whole 
counsel  of  God  must  be  set  forth  by  its  ex- 
ponents, and  by  Divine  help  its  great  counsels  of 
perfection  must  be  embodied  in  deeds  by  those 
who  profess  it,  so  that  the  entire  life  of  the 
community  may  be  permeated  by  its  spirit.  It 
is  the  engrafted  word  which  is  able  to  save  society 
as  well  as  the  soul,  but  it  can  only  regenerate  the 
social  order  if  men  obey  its  commands. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  we  have  come 
to  a  great  crisis  in  the  history  of  our  land,  if 
not  also  in  the  history  of  mankind.  We  are 
entering  on  a  new  era,  and  it  has  now  to  be 
decided  whether  it  is  to  be  a  Christian  or  a 
pagan  era.  Once  more  Christianity  is  on  its 
trial.  If  it  can  no  longer  regenerate  society  as 
it  did  in  the  first  century,  those  who  assert 
that  it  is  not  the  final  religion,  but  only  a  stage 
in  the  development  of  the  race,  will  have  much 
to  say  for  their  contention.  Unless  the  gospel 
can  deal  with  the  new  situation  and  Christianise 
the  new  era  it  will  be  difficult  to  show  that  it 
is  the  gospel  we  need. 

Nor  is  it  enough  to  say,  as  some  say  with 
manifest  piety  and  faith,  that  everything  would 
soon   be  put  right  in   Church  and  State  if  only 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEAL  307 

we  had  a  revival  like  that  which  gave  us  the 
Reformation  and  re-made  Europe  in  the  sixteenth- 
century  ;  or  that  other  w^hich  flooded  everything 
with  new  life  more  than  a  century  ago.  That 
is  true,  but  revival  of  that  sort — and  God  never 
repeats  himself — cannot  be  expected  until  those 
who  are  already  under  the  influence  of  Christ 
are  walking  in  the  light  they  have. 

We  can  hardly  even  say  that  such  a  revival 
is  desirable  if  it  would  merely  effect  an  improve- 
ment on  the  present  state  of  affairs  instead  of 
putting  an  end  to  what  is  well-nigh  intolerable; 
a  Church  which  is  little  more  than  the  world 
under  another  name ;  club-churches  at  one  end 
of  the  city,  and  dreary  mission-halls  in  mean 
streets  at  the  other ;  the  rich  truckled  to  and 
the  poor  patronised  if  they  fall  dutifully  into  line; 
and  a  handful  rescued  here  and  there  out  of  the 
seething  mass  of  misery,  discontent,  and  unbelief. 

The  truth  is  that  unless  we  use  the  term  in  its 
vaguest  sense,  no  nation,  not  even  our  own,  has 
ever  been  Christianised  yet,  and  the  revival  for 
which  every  Christian  patriot  should  work  and 
pray  is  that  all  the  nations  should  become  Christian 
in  the  sense  of  actually  doing  the  will  of  God 
and  following  in  the  footsteps  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.  Were  that  vision  realised  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  would  be  applied  everywhere,  as 
surely  it  was  meant  to  be ;  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord 
would  be  at  work  in  every  sphere,  as  He  yearns 
to  work ;  the  State  would  no  longer  be  looked  on 
by  any  as  merely  the  world  under  another  name  ; 
good  people  would  no  longer  divide  their  lives 
into  sacred  and  secular,  or  history,  which  is  the 
living  garment  of  God,  into  sacred  and  profane  ; 


THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEAL 

and  not  the  labour  problem  only,  but  many 
another  besides,  would  be  solved  at  last. 

And  such  a  revival — a  revival  which  would 
be  a  reformation,  a  revolution,  and  a  renaissance 
in  one — is  imperative  if  God's  kingdom  is  to  come 
on  the  earth,  or  if  His  will  is  to  be  done  here 
as  it  is  in  heaven ;  and  assuredly  judgment 
must  begin  at  the  house  of  God.  What  a  privilege 
it  would  be  to  have  some  share  in  bringing  in 
this  better  time.  Men  who  have  lived  through 
some  great  conflict  which  secured  liberty  for  the 
nation,  which  lowered  the  franchise,  cheapened 
the  people's  bread,  provided  education  for  the 
children,  or  made  it  easier  for  the  weak  ones 
to  be  pure  and  sober,  and  more  difficult  for  any 
to  do  wrong,  are  justly  proud  of  it. 

With  how  much  more  cause  might  those  be 
proud  who  have  any  share  in  putting  the  keystone 
in  the  arch  of  freedom  which  the  labourer  has 
been  building  all  through  the  ages,  in  pain  of  body 
and  agony  of  soul ;  so  that  there  would  be  no 
longer  any  internecine  strife  amongst  us,  but 
all  would  work  in  the  Spirit  of  Christ  for  the 
common  weal !  The  summons  is  urgent  that 
all  who  are  loyal  to  Christ  should  wait  on  Him 
and  be  obedient  to  the  heavenly  vision,  and  should 
walk  with  eagerness  in  the  pathway  on  w^hich 
the  Divine  light  is  falling.  Vain  is  the  help  of 
man;  vainest  of  all  the  help  of  the  mere  ecclesiastic 
or  politician ;  but  the  Lord  Jehovah  is  almighty, 
and  if  those  who  name  His  name  and  have  been 
taught  by  Him  are  everywhere  loyal  to  His  Spirit 
all  will  yet  be  well. 


INDEX 


Accidents,  and  long  hours,  194 ; 

liability  of  aged  to,  278,  279 
Acton,  Lord,  117 
Adscripti  glehae,  102 
Agnosticism  of  proletariat,  33 
Agricultural      labourers,      152, 

160  n.,  175 
Anonymity  of  modern  labourer, 

43,  215,  225 
Apprentice     system,     165-67  ; 

modern  problem,  221 
Apostles  and  slavery,  65 
Arbitration  in  labour  disputes, 

283-89  ;      voluntary,     283  ; 

through  Board  of  Trade,  284 ; 

in  colonies,  287-89 
Aristotle,  35,  52,  53,  63 
Augustine  and  slavery,  87 

Babylon,  slavery  in,  49,  56 

BaU,  John,  117,  149 

Basil  and  the  marriage  of  slaves, 
85 

Benedict,  Eule  of  St.,  108 

Bible  and  freedom,  145 

Bishops  and  poor  priests,  118, 
150 ;  and  Lord  Shaftesbury,  31 

Blatchford,  Mr.,  ix,  31 

Black  Death  and  labour  move- 
ment, 113, 115-19, 122  n.,  140, 
153 


"  Blind-alley  "  occupations,  302 

Board  of  Trade  intervention, 
284,  285 

Booth,  Mr.Charles,  and  poverty, 
232 

Brace's  Gesta  Christi,  112  n. 

Brotherhoods,  256 

Browning,  Mrs.,  T7ie  Cry  of 
the  Children,  169-71 

Brunner,  Sir  John,  and  acci- 
dents to  aged  workers,  11, 
278,  294 

Bums,  Mr.  John,  and  the  unem- 
ployable, 301 

Buri^^  ottar' 8  Saturday  Night, 
179  * 

Bunyan,  John,  the  significance 
of  his  career,  179 

Burt,  Mr.  Thomas,  and  Primitive 
Methodists,  176 


"Ca-canky"    policy,    38,    144, 

249,  294 
Caird,  Prof.  Edward,  viii,  197  n. 
Cairns,  Prof.,  147,  201  n. 
Calvinism  and  otherworldliness, 

74,  211 
Canonists  and  honest  work,  130 
Capital  and  labour,  39,  219, 243, 

295 


309 


310 


INDEX 


Carlyle,  8,  21  n.,  114,  133,  177, 
201,  210,  243 

Casual  workers,  230 

Ceorls  in  Saxon  England,  105, 
106 

Charity  organisation,  300 

Christ,  and  slavery,  65,  70,  95 ; 
the  Liberator,  vii.,  6,  7,  11, 
123,  135,  177,  180,  185,  212, 
253  ;  as  a  servant,  242 

Christianity,  applied,  27,  174, 
175  ;  and  collectivism,  34 ;  of 
the  churches,  15-20 ;  alone 
has  necessary  power,  7.  14, 
36,  81 ;  alone  can  avert  dis- 
aster, vii,  303 ;  and  Darwinism, 
24 ;  the  great  leveller,  108 ; 
light  in  darkness,  111 ;  and 
free  labour,  86 ;  influence 
often  indirect,  13,  15,  79,  80, 
89,  90,  95,  99,  102,  109,  113, 
148,  155,  173;  and  serfdom, 
99-101,  108-12 ;  and  slavery, 
66-72 ;  and  Stoicism,  81  ;  and 
new  strivings,  121,  123,  150  ; 
and  individualism,  34,  147, 
177 ;  and  moral  development, 
156,  241 ;  estrangement  from 
labour,  6,  30-33,  224,  256; 
and  modern  social  reform, 
173 ;  the  imperial  religion, 
180  ;  the  Christian  ideal,  229- 
308 

Churches,  the,  caste  in,  x,  215, 
224,  243,  259  ;  as  clubs,  255  ; 
helpingviUeins,107,108;  failure 
and  dechne  of,  5  n.,  138,  145, 
148  ;  and  proletariat,  231 ; 
and  working  men,  224,  254, 
256  ;  and  labour  party,  32  ; 
poor    priests    and    progress. 


118 ;  often  misunderstood^ 
257,  272;  their  beneficence,, 
275 ;  their  real  work,  305 ; 
sinister  sUence  of,  x,  172 ; 
and  class  distinctions,  257- 
258 

Churchill,  Mr.  Winston,  and 
arbitration,  285 

Cicero  and  slavery,  48,  53,  61 

Class  legislation,  30,  164,  188 

Clement  IV.,  85 

Clotaire  of  France,  83 

Collectivism  and  Christianity,  34 

Colliers  and  salters,  132 

Coloni,  102-3 ;  quasi-coloni,  103 

Colonies  and  social  legislation,. 
195, 196  ;  and  arbitration,  287 

Combination  of  workers,  143- 
45,  157,  162-64 

"  Common  employment,"  doc- 
trine of,  191 

Committee  on  Physical  Dete- 
rioration (1904),  247 

Comte  and  solidarity  of  race,. 
35 ;  and  slavery,  50 

Conciliation  Boards,  283,  284 

Contract  and  status,  42 

Conway,  M.  D.,  and  American 
slavery,  213 

Co-operative  movement,  233 ; 
co-partnerships,  234 

Courts  of  Arbitration,  285 

Courtria  and  the  Day  of  Spurs^ 
114,  237 

Critical  situation,  38,  217,  306 

Cromer,  Lord,  and  progress, 
217;  and  Old  Age  Pensions, 
275 

Crusades  and  labour  movement, 
113,  114 

Cunningham's       Growth       of 


INDEX 


311 


English  Industry  and  Com- 
merce, 86  n.,  110  n. 

Dale,  Dr.,  and  the  Church's 
work,  27 

Dangerous  and  disgusting  occu- 
pations, 246 

Dawson,  Dr.,  and  the  corrup- 
tion of  the  Church,  5,  5  n. 

Distress  committees,  11 

Drunkenness  and  labour  prob- 
lem, 247,  267,  268 

Dunraven  Commission  on 
Sweating,  xiii 

Economic  changes  in  Roman 
Empire,  100,  101 ;  in  Europe 
in  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  cen- 
turies, 151-54 

Education  Acts,  169 

Egypt,  slavery  in,  49,  56 

Eight  Hours  Act,  30;  eight- 
hours  day,  247,  248 

Emancipation,  in  Early  Church, 
69-73  ;  in  Middle  Ages,  109  n. 

Emerson  on  division  of  labour, 
216 

Employee,  labourer  as,  181 ; 
new  word  naturalised,  184 ; 
new  spirit  abroad,  185 ;  law 
impartial  now,  186  ;  effects  of 
extended  franchise,  188 ;  in- 
dividualism discredited,  192 ; 
progress  of  moral  self,  210; 
new  inroads  on  personality, 
225 

Essenes  and  slavery,  56 

Estrangement  between  churches 
and  labour,  6,  30-33,  224 

Evangelical  revival,  174,  175 


Expediency,  a  noble  Christian, 
202,  205 

Factory    Commission    Report 

(1833),  199 
Factory     Legislation,     167-69, 

193-95 
Fathers,    the,    and    dignity  of 

labour,  64 
Feudalism  and  labour,  41,  89 
Fixity  of  tenure  and  occupation, 

100,  102 
Forbes  Mackenzie  Act,  240 
Francis,  St.,  130 
Franchise,  effect  of  extension  of, 

188 
Free  labour,  and  slavery,  49,  62 ; 

among  Jews,    59,    61  ;    and 

Christianity,  86 ;  and  serfdom, 

101 
French  Revolution,    125,    131, 

150,  159,  236 
"  Freedom  to  starve,"  137 
Freedom  of  contract,  202,  209 
Froissart  and  serfdom  in  France 

and  Scotland,  93 
Fumess,  Sir  Christopher,  now 

Lord,     and    co-partnerships, 

234 

Ganora,  Synod  of,  76 

George,  Mr.  Lloyd,  and  arbi- 
tration, 285 

Germany,  no  central  authority 
in,  105  ;  Roman  law  in,  105 

Gibbins'  English  Social  Re- 
formers, XV,  151  n.,  167  n., 
178  n. 

Gospel  developes  personality, 
241;  makes  men  fit  to  be 
free,  211 


312 


INDEX 


Green's  Short  History  of  Eng- 
lish People,  119  n.,  157  n.,  211 
Green,  Professor,  and  personal 

character,  209 
Graham,  Mr.  Gray,  xv 
Gregory  the  Great,  84,  87 
Guilds  and  labour,  130 
Gwatkin,  Prof.,  62  n.,  156  n. 

EL^LLAM  and  villeinage,  96,  106 
Harcourt,     Sir    William,     and 

Socialism,  25 
Hardie,  Mr.  Keir,  208  n.,  303 
Hausser's    The   Period   of  the 

Reformation,  122  n.,  126  n. 
Hebrews  and  slavery,  55-61 
Henderson,     Mr.     Arthur,     on 

Labour  Party  and  Churches, 

82 
Higher    Criticism    and    prole- 
tariat, 33 
History,     unfair    to    agitators, 

120  ;  ignores  labourers,  172 
Home,  the,  and  social  reform, 

226 
Homer  and  slavery,  265  n. 
Hope,  saved  by,  xvi,  287-38 
Horton,  Dr.,   and  influence  of 

Christian  Church,  69 
Huntingdon,  Lady,  78,  206 
Huxley,  Prof essor,  and  freedom, 
197 

Ideal,  the  Christian,  229 ;  as 
spiritual  eludes  analysis,  241 ; 
the  daily  work  divine  calling, 
242 ;  idleness  a  sin,  243  ; 
many  misfits,  245;  "ca-canny" 
policy,  38,  144,  249,  294 ;  im- 
portance of  labourer  in  social 
organism,     251  ;     need     for 


living  wage,  260 ;  and  for 
adequate  provision  for  those 
who  cannot  work,  270  ; 
Church  does  much,  272  ; 
starvation  wages,  273 ;  need 
for  compulsory  arbitration, 
283 ;  strikes  barbarous,  283 ; 
examples  of  colonies,  287 ; 
work  of  the  Church,  305 

Idleness,  honoured,  7,  242-43 ; 
a  deadly  sin,  243 

Independent  Labour  Party's  de- 
mands, 190  n.,  261 

Individuahsm,  192,  201,  207, 
251 ;  and  Christianity,  34, 
177 ;    and  Keformation,    147 

Inspectors,  169 ;  revolt  against, 
177 

Ingram,  Professor,  28  n. 

Insecurity  prevalent,  221 

Insurance  system,  192 ;  com- 
panies and  elderly  workmen, 
11 

Irish  Presbyterians  and  Old  Age 
Pensions,  271 

Jessopp,  Canon,  and  Primitive 

Methodists,  176 
Jews  and  slavery,  55-61 ;   and 

free  labour,  59-61 
Jones,  Professor,  21  n.,  207  n. 
Justice  and  Christianity,  267  n. 

Kaufmakn,  5  n. 

Keeble's  Industrial  Day- 
Dreams,    305 

Kingsley,  Charles,  and  modem 
movement,  177 

Kirkup,  Mr.  Thomas,  6n.,  21  n., 
225  n. 


INDEX 


313 


Laboub,  dignity  of,  7,  241-43 ; 
degraded,  38 ;  in  Middle  Ages, 
131;  unskilled,  9, 268;  leaders, 
30,  31,  285 ;  M.P.'s,  30,  164 ; 
agricultural,  152,  160  n. ;  ex- 
changes, 12;  State  interfer- 
ence with,  26 ;  organised  now, 
28;  movement  in  history,  40- 
41,  107-9 ;  problem,  vii,  3-9, 
13,  229,  231 ;  deprived  of  its 
share  of  rewards,  37,  231 

Lcdssez-fa/ire,  discredited  now, 
21,  22, 178,  201 ;  exalted,  160 ; 
defects  of ,161  n.,  297, 298 ;  and 
orthodoxy,  22 

Lasalle,  Ferdinand,  8,  209 

Law  of  Settlement,  119 

Law  used  against  labourer,  104, 
143,  157, 186 

Legislation  and  reform,  239 

Lecky,  6  n.,  68  n.,  72  n.,  76,  93, 
156,  174,  303 

Lightfoot,  Bishop,  65  n.,  75  n. 

Limited  Liability  Companies, 
220 

Livesey,  Sir  George,  and  acci- 
dents to  aged  workers,  11, 
279,  294 

Living  wage,  260;  Ruskin  on, 
261 ;  often  not  paid,  265 

Longfellow's  Norman  Baron, 
118  n. 

Lord's  Supper  and  slavery,  72 

Luther,  105  ;  and  peasants,  125- 
29,  265 


Macdonald,  Mr.  Bamsay,  208  n. 
Machinery,  effects  of,  11,  168, 

174,  215 
Mackenzie's    Introduction    to 


Social     PJdlosopTiy,     43  n., 

64  n. 
Magna  Charta  and  slavery,113  n. 
Marriage  of  slaves,  85 
Marshall,  Professor,  238  n. 
Materialism  and  social  reform, 

5n. 
Mediaeval  Church  and  serfdom, 

99,  111,  112 
Melanchthon,  127  n. 
Methodists,  Primitive,  162, 175, 

176, 177 ;  revival,  174 
Menger,  Dr.,  94,  253  n. 
Middle  classes  and  Christianity, 

17 
Mill,  J.  S.,  203,  212,  292 
Miller,  Hugh,  ajid  colliers  and 

salters,  132 
Mohammedanism  and  equality, 

254 
Monastic  orders  and  emancipa- 
tion, 111 
Money,   Mr.   Chiozza,  217  n., 

231  n. 
Moral  aspects  of  labour  problem, 

39 
More's  Utopia,  248  n. 

"  Nemesis  of  Nations  "  (by  W.  R. 

Paterson),  48,  50,  55  n. 
New  Socialism  (by  Miss  Jane 

Stoddart),  94,  217  n.,  242  n., 

247  n.,  253  n.,  266  n. 
New  Testament,  and  free  labour, 

61-64;   and   slavery,  64-68; 

an  open  book,  146 
Nineteenth  century,  revival  and 

reform,  16 

Occupations,  dangerous  and  dis- 
gusting, 246 


Chriatianity  and  Labow. 


22 


314 


INDEX 


Old  Age  Pensions,  11,  26,  189, 

270,  271,  276,  282 
Old   Testament    and    slavery, 

58-60 
Onesimus,  66 

Otherworldliness,  74,  210-11 
Overcrowding,  4, 232 


PA0ANISM,  and  labour,  7, 86 ;  and 
the  State,  26  ;  in  modem  life, 
58  ;  avenging  itself,  77 

Paji-Anglican  Conference,  209 

Parents,  rights  of,  199 

Paul,  St.,  66,  69,  74,  253 

Peabody's  Jesus  Christ  a/nd  the 
Social  Question,  5  n. 

Peasants'  Wars,  in  England, 
116-23,  141,  149;  in  Ger- 
many, 116,  122,  124-28,  131 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  and  factory 
legislation,  167,  168,  193 

PhUemon,  Epistle  to,  65  n.,  66, 
67 

Piers  Ploughman,  149 

Pitt,  WUliam,  and  the  children 
workers,  166 

Plato,  52,  63 

Political  economy,  and  the  thrift- 
less, 10 ;  no  longer  dismal 
science,  23 ;  the  new,  28 

Pollard,  Professor,  and  Luther, 
127  n.,  129  n. 

Poor  Law  Commission,  276, 301, 
302 

Poor  Law  system,  281 

Profit-sharing,  234 

Progress  by  antagonism,  42, 141 

Proletariat,  rise  of,  141 ;  agnosti- 
cism of,  33 

P.S.A's.,256 


Reconciliation  through  Christi- 
anity only,  33 

Reformers  before  the  Reforma- 
tion, 88, 129 

Reformation,  105;  and  selfish- 
ness, 147 ;  and  liberty,  147 ; 
in  Wesley's  time,  173 

Reign  of  Terror,  9,  159;  in 
France  and  Britain,  174 

Renaissance,  105,  155 

Rents  instead  of  personal  ser- 
vice, 117 

Ritson's  Boma/nce  of  Primitive 
Methodism,  175 

Roberts,  Lord,  and  the  veterans, 
271 

Rogers,  Prof.Thorold,  137  n.,  173, 
174,  303 

Roman  jtirists  and  slavery,  53 

Roman  law  in  Germanic  lands, 
99,  105 

Romilly,  Sir  Samuel,  and  child 
labour,  166,  168  n. 

Ruskin,  21,  177,  236,  243,  250, 
261 

Sabbath  and  labour  reform,  82- 

83 
Scotland,  serfs  in,  93,  97,  98, 

114,  132 ;  Reign  of  Terror  in, 

159 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  111,  179 
Selsey,  emancipation  at,  109  n. 
Serfdom — ^labourer  as  serf,  91 ; 

always  relative,  96 ;  residuary 

interest,  97 ;  among  Saxons, 

105. 106,  111 ;  in  Scotland,  98, 
131-33  ;  in  Norman  England, 

106. 107,  111 ;  necessarily  tem- 
porary, 99 ;  and  Christianity, 
99-101 ;  and  Roman  law,  104- 


INDEX 


315 


6 ;  in  Germany,  105, 124, 131, 
153 ;  in  England,  107-8, 111- 
13 ;  Crusades  and  Black 
Death,  113-15 ;  modified,  117 ; 
gradually  disappeared,  125 ; 
never  formally  abolished,  150 

Servant,  labourer  as,  135 ;  tran- 
sition from  serfdom,  137 ; 
labourer  a  man  now,  138; 
good  and  evil  aspects,  140- 
43 ;  attempts  at  restriction, 
143 ;  combination,  143—45 ; 
Trades  Unions,  157 ;  blackest 
period,  160,  174;  turn  of  the 
tide,  161 ;  wrongs  of  the  chil- 
dren, 166 ;  factory  legislation, 
167 ;  Revival,  173 ;  Christ  as 
Liberator,  180 

Shaftesbury,  Lord,  31,  168,  171 

Sin  of  cheapness,  sdii 

Slavery — labourer  as  slave,  45 ; 
in  Roman  Empire,  48,  50,  51, 
54,  76,  80,  99,  100 ;  economi- 
cally condemned,  49 ;  as  ma- 
chinery of  the  old  world,  49 ; 
and  free  labour,  49,   53,   55, 
59 ;  and  family,  49 ;  in  Baby- 
lon and  Greece,  50, 51 ;  extent 
of,  51 ;  essential  to  paganism, 
51;  among  Hebrews,  55-61 
in    New   Testament,   64-71 
in  early  Church,  69-76 ;  negro 
77-79,    213;   gradual    disap 
pearance,  76,  85,  89,  93,  105 
in  England,  105-7,  111,  113 
never  formally  abolished,  150 
slave  risings,  67 ;  slave  mar 
tyrs,  71 ;  and  Lord's  Supper 
73 ;  in  United  States,  55,  73 
77,    78,    94,    213;    the   new 
slavery,  42,  44 


Smith,  Adam,  160,  164,  207 
Social  reform  and  party  politics, 

25 
Social   Democratic   Federation 

demands,  190  n.,  244 
Social   Organism,  labourer  in, 

251-58 
Socialism,  26,  94 ;  and  religion, 

208 
Spencer,  85,  42,  292 
Standard  of  living  rising,  229, 

304 
State  interference  with  labour, 

198-200 
Status  to  contract,  42 
Statute  of  Labourers,  17,  122, 

139 
Stoicism,  69,  81 
Strachey,  St.  Loe,  230  n. 
Strikes,  283,  289,  290 
Sweating,    legislation    against, 

195 

Taff  Vale  decision,  187 
Theodore  of  Studium,  84 
Thriftless,  the,  10,  267 
Towns  and  growth  of  freedom, 

98,  152,  153 
Trade  Boards  Act,  xiii,  26, 196, 

269 
Trade  Unions,  first  in  England, 

117 ;  legislation  against,  143  ; 

legislation  in  favour  of,  162- 

64,  187  ;  modem,  290-95 
Truck  Act,  153 
Tyler,  Wat,  117 
"  Twelve  articles  "  of  German 

peasants,  125 

Unemployed,    11,     141,     249; 
legislation  for,  12 


316 


INDEX 


Unskilled  labotir  9,  301 
Uncertainty    of    employment, 
277,  279 

Villeins,  85,  96, 97, 102 ;  defeat 
knights,  114-15 ;  their  residu- 
ary interest,  97 

Wages  often  inadequate,  217] 

265,  266,  273,  274 
Wallace,  Sir  William,  114, 181 


"WaHon's  History  of  Slavery,  50. 

48  n.,  99  n. 
Wesley   and    common   people, 

173 
Westminster,  Council  of,  113  n. 
Whitefield,     George,    a     slave 

owner,  77-78 
Wiclifif,  and  the  peasants'  rising, 

119-23, 145 
Wolsey,   Cardinal,   significance 

of  his  career,  108,  179 


N 


UirWIN  BBOIHEBS,  UMITED,  THE  QBESHAH  PBESS,  WOKENQ  AIO)  liONSON. 


UCSB    LIBRARy 


